


golden city is on fire

by jmpia



Category: EXO (Band), SHINee, SuperM (Korea Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Journalism, Alternate Universe - Politics, Angst (a bit), M/M, Pining, Slow Burn (kinda), past taemin/ten, they said write what you know and i ran with that
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-08
Updated: 2020-12-19
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:20:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 41,601
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27460336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jmpia/pseuds/jmpia
Summary: They were friends who had something - used to have something. A temporary lapse of judgment, a moment of insanity filled with yearning sighs and stares heavy with something more, an unexplained and unexplainable tug at the pit of their stomachs and in the beating of their hearts. It pulled them closer, closer, ever closer, it brought lips on exposed skin, hands buried in hair and faint moans behind the intimacy of a closed door - dorm room number 496, fourth floor, third door to the right in the second to last corridor.They were friends.
Relationships: Kim Jongin | Kai/Lee Taemin
Comments: 53
Kudos: 45





	1. keep good love from going wrong

**Author's Note:**

> Enjoy the result of a whole day of putting off midterm revisions!  
> New characters might pop up along the way, I'll add them to the character tags when they become relevant enough to the story! I'll also add tags along the way if needed (and might change the summary)
> 
> also this is unbeta-ed so bear with me pls
> 
> here is a [playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2XkJL7DcbQ5v0gzBMlyA6N) i made to set the mood

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> title from lover you should've come over - jeff buckley

It wasn’t that Taemin disliked these assignments per se. 

The deep investigating and uncovering of malpractices by major companies was the main reason he got into this field to begin with. 

His profound dislike for the way the economic and political systems worked, giving international firms and powerful politicians an almost untouchable status and a license to trample environmental and human rights regulations, and his taste for, as Baekhyun liked to put it, “fucking shit up”, made him one of the best investigative reporters the _San Francisco Tribune_ could count on.

His latest breaking story on the exploitation of Peruvian immigrants by an Oakland corporation granted him recognition among the general public, invitations to a few broadcasts and local late shows (all of which had been turned down, keeping a low profile and all that), as well as a, in his opinion very flattering, libel lawsuit from the corporation, which was eventually dropped due to insignificant evidence.

Taemin’s name was becoming a cornerstone at the _Tribune_. And, well, his pen name had come to get quite a reputation within the general public in the area. Francesco Min - unassuming, discreet, and it sounded nothing like his actual name. Low profile.

At the _Tribune_ , Taemin was known for his ability to work a story and work his contacts in order to get to the deep, nasty bottom of a story. Baekhyun, his editor, had complete trust in his judgement and Taemin was easily given _carte blanche_ to investigate whatever lead he had. 

There were a few other investigative journalists on the Shadow team at the _San Francisco Tribune_. Hannah, a short woman in her early forties, had been in the team since before Baekhyun took over as editor, and was known for her biting reports on societal issues. Nobody ever really saw Arthur and Bess, renowned journalists with over thirty years of experience. They always worked together, always on top-secret projects even Baekhyun knew nothing about, and most of what they did was investigating for a few months, popping into the office with a story ready to publish, before disappearing again trailing god knows what lead. 

Taemin was the rookie. He’d written for the _Tribune_ , alongside his master’s at Berkeley, before catching Baekhyun’s attention and getting drafted into Shadow. At 25, and after a couple harrowing years of writing mostly for the local news section, he’d come to Baekhyun with a convincing lead on a story regarding links between an important insurance company and downtown clubs dabbling in illegal activities, and the rest was history. 

So, no, it wasn’t that he disliked these assignments Baekhyun gave him once in a while when stories were drying up and no new convincing lead was to be found. They passed the time, and even though they seemed less important and less able to lead to a front-page worthy story, they paid the bills. 

However, without wanting to seem defeatist, Taemin had almost zero faith in the lead Baekhyun had given him. Supposedly, he’d heard of possible links between a sitting Californian Senator, Senator Morris, and a small tech firm based on the outskirts of San Francisco regarding repeated network hacks on local environmental law firms and activist organisations. Yes, it could be big, but the lead was very vague, and Taemin suspected the only reason Baekhyun brought him the story was to keep him busy after he’d hit a bit of a slump in the recent weeks. 

Arguably. 

Baekhyun called it a slump, Taemin called it a logical emotional and cognitive reaction to getting dumped out of the blue after three years of relationship. Semantics.

* * *

“So you’re writing a story on small tech businesses in the Bay area..?” The receptionist asked with a quirked brow. She couldn’t have been older than twenty-five, Taemin thought to himself. 

“Hm, that’s right. We’re trying to show the dynamism of the Bay Area’s small tech firms. You know, we hear a lot about the Silicon Valley giants, but we’d like to give a voice to smaller businesses. We thought it would be interesting to give NCT a chance to show us the best of local tech companies,” Taemin recited with an innocent, child-like smile on his lips. His speech had been rehearsed to the tee before coming. That was one of the perks of owning a face that seemed to guard the secrets to eternal youth - he could always pass as a fresh-faced college graduate eager to write small, insignificant stories for the _Tribune_. 

“Okay… Did you notify the office that you were coming? We usually like to be informed about the press coming in.” _Bullshit_ , Taemin thought. 

The ‘office’ was a hole-in-the-wall in a nondescript street on the outskirts of San Francisco. The beige paint on the walls was chipping, and Taemin was pretty sure that those were mold spots on the ceiling. Besides the reception desk in the entrance, there were only two other doors in the office - he suspected it was the owners’ offices. From what Baekhyun had told him, they were two young guys who’d founded the company only a few years back. From the looks of it, it seemed that business was struggling to kick off.

In any case, there was no way they ‘liked to be informed about the press coming in’, as the receptionist - _Wendy,_ her name tag read - had said, simply because there was no way any holder of a press card had ever stepped foot in the building.

“No, we didn’t. My editor usually likes doing things this way, makes the exchange more genuine, you know?” Taemin said with a sweet tone and a smile. Wendy didn’t budge. “... I won’t take up too much of your time though, I just have a few standard questions… Is there any way I could speak to one of the owners?” Taemin waved his small notepad about. Notepads were good, he’d learned. Notepads looked unassuming and instantly made people trust him enough to speak, in the way a voice recorder didn’t. “Either… Johnny Suh or Yukhei Wong? They’re the owners, right?” He said after a quick glance at his notes. Two Stanford kids who started their own business, he’d gathered from his research.

“Listen,” she glanced at the press card on the lanyard around his neck, “Mr. Lee, I’m sorry but I can’t get you anything without a proper appointment and a detailed summary of your questions. Mr. Suh and Mr. Wong are very busy at the moment.” Sweet and young as she seemed, Wendy definitely had an edge to her that made Taemin suspicious. Huh. Maybe this story wasn’t such a dead end after all.

* * *

Taemin was snapped out of his thoughts by Taeyong shaking his shoulder and snapping his fingers in front of his face. Fairy lights. Flowers. Stevie Nicks’ voice singing the last few lines of _Rhiannon_ in the background, through the speakers. The smell of beer and french fries. Oh right. He’d been dragged down to the Black Rose by Taeyong, who’d implored him to _please, come out, I haven’t seen you in three weeks and I can’t stand the thought of you moping around in that hipster-y shoebox you call home_. Unnecessary dig at his apartment and interior decor tastes, Taemin had thought.

“You with me? Can you focus? This is important!” Taeyong exclaimed with a positively outraged look on his face. It prompted Taemin to scoff and take a sip of his beer. A bit too bitter. His friend really needed to stop making him try out these craft IPAs that tasted like cheap imported Canadian beers but cost double the price.

“I doubt the trials and tribulations of your latest Tinder hookup qualify as important, Taeyong,” Taemin snorted, giving his friend a playful glance.

“Excuse me, it’s _very_ important! See, she wrote,” he showed Taemin his phone, “ _had a nice time last night, maybe next time you can show me that really cool fish tank you told me about”_! What do you think it means?” The younger said, frustration visible on his face. It made Taemin laugh.

“Man, I can assure you that nobody, ever, in the history of humankind, has called a fish tank ‘cool’. Means she wants to see you again,” Taemin shrugged.

“Taeyong, can you stop bothering Taem with your relationship woes? He’s going to go all _Nothing Compares 2 U_ on us in like, three minutes, I can feel-- Ow!” 

Taemin gasped - the _audacity_ \- before kicking Kibum in the shin for that completely uncalled for - accurate, but uncalled for - drag.

Kibum grinned from his seat in front of the other two. “How is Ten, by the way?”

“I don’t know. Picked the last of my stuff up from our-- _his_ place last week. I haven’t really heard from him since, we work on different floors,” Taemin poured the rest of his beer into his glass with a sigh. 

“Man, it kind of sucks though,” Taeyong rested his hand on Taemin’s shoulder and gave a comforting rub, “I mean, I know he’s still my friend and all, but he could have given you an explanation or something.”

“I mean, falling out of love and meeting someone else _is_ an explana-- Ow!” Kibum screamed, prompting other patrons to stare at him, when Taemin kicked his shin again. “I’m just saying!” He held his hands up.

“Thank you, Kibum, for this brilliant insight! Just what I needed,” Taemin mumbled ironically, searching through his pockets for his pack of cigarettes and a lighter.

“If you ask me, he didn’t deserve you anyway. What is he, only like, the third most published photographer at the _Tribune_?”

“Just--- don’t even,” Taemin said with a warning glance, taking a drag from his cigarette and blowing the smoke up into the chilly, early September evening air. “It just sucks, you know? To go from ‘ _I love you so much, let’s move in together and come with me to my sister’s wedding in DC and let’s go to Italy this summer'_ to ‘ _cool if I keep the cat? You don’t have a garden in your new apartment._ ’ Just sucks,” he concluded with a shake of his head, earning a few sorry glances from Taeyong.

“You know what you need?” the youngest of the bunch said with a grin, prompting an excited clap from Kibum, “you need a rebound, dude. You’re, like, a young, handsome, successful guy, you can’t waste your youth on a breakup.”

“First of all, I’m not wasting my youth, it’s been six weeks,” Taemin started, punctuating his sentence with a sip of his beer - still bitter - “second of all---”

“No, no second of all, shut up,” Kibum interrupted, “I agree with Tyong. You’re not exactly the busiest with work at the moment, it might pass the time, and you might just get a good dicking down in the process. Perks!”

Taemin scoffed - did Kibum always _have_ to be so crude about things - and leaned forward with his elbows on the table. After taking another drag from his cigarette, he hummed. “Enlighten me then, how _do_ I do that? Just come up to any random guy and be like ‘hey, I’m heartbroken, please take off your pants’?” Taeyong laughed wholeheartedly at that, shoving his friend’s side.

“That’s one way to look at it, or you could just… You know,” he pulled out Taemin’s phone and tapped around on the screen before showing him the device - so, apparently Taemin had a Tinder account now?

“What the hell? I’ve been sitting here all this time, when did you make that?” Taemin whined, his eyes wide in disbelief.

“When you went to get us the beers,” Kibum filled him in with a smirk and a mischievous glint in his eyes, “and we only picked the best pictures! Look! You only look mildly scrawny on that one!” That earned him cigarette smoke blown in his face from a very disgruntled Taemin. 

“So this is a whole ass conspiracy against me then?” Taemin asked, the other two nodding in sync at that. “What did you---- What the fuck?” he almost jumped from his seat, before staring at his friends. “‘ _Hope you like bad boys because I’m bad at everything’_ what kind of bio is that? You guys suck so much, jesus---”

Taeyong and Kibum both burst out laughing, clearly enjoying their friend’s frustration. 

“Taem, come on, it’s fun! Humor us there,” Kibum sipped on his cocktail.

“We’ve selected a few suitors,” Taeyong added with a wiggle of his eyebrows, clicking the few profiles. It made Taemin look at the two of them with disgust.

“Tell me what exactly made you think I’d swipe right on a dudebro with ‘ _420 blaze it, Carpe Diem, pura vida’_ as his bio?”

“Oooh, look at you knowing the lingo already,” Kibum laughed, continuing to look through the swipes, “just give it a shot, okay? See, this one’s not that bad, he likes ‘ _dogs, long walks in the park and hanging out with friends’_!”

“Who the fuck doesn’t like dogs, long walks in the park and hanging out with friends, Kibum, that’s not exactly a testament to his dateability,” the young journalist said with a scoff, stubbing out his cigarette before mussing up his light blonde hair.

“You’re not looking to date them, Taem, you’re looking to fuck,” Taeyong said quietly as he continued swiping left and right on Taemin’s profile. 

Taemin chuckled half-heartedly and buried his face in his hands with a long sigh. “You know what,” he started, snatching his phone from Taeyong’s hands, “fuck it. I’ll give it a try, but stop swiping for me, you’re clueless.”

* * *

Taemin ran his hands over his face, his studio apartment lit up with only the pale blue glow of his laptop screen. He quickly glanced at the time displayed on his microwave oven - 10:47 pm. He could have gone to bed sooner, but the three cups of coffee he’d had in the late afternoon to power through an excruciatingly long and detailed public record of contributions from individuals, companies and political action committees to Senator Morris’ multiple campaigns throughout the years had apparently wiped any possibility for a reasonable bedtime. 

That and, well, the fact that he was not exactly looking forward to sleeping in a cold, empty bed again. 

Damn. 

No matter how busy he kept himself during the day to avoid thinking about it, the silence of late nights always brought back memories of Ten. 

His laughter, his soft hands on Taemin’s skin. His pancakes on a Sunday morning, which took about twenty tries before being halfway decent, and then went on to become his signature dish. 

The smell of coffee that hung in their kitchen for about two months that one time he got into artisanal coffee, roasting his own beans - _Arabica from Costa Rica, the rest is garbage you can’t change my mind_ , he’d say - and grinding them himself. Ten’s coffee never tasted good. Fuck, Taemin missed that coffee. 

The way he placed a soothing hand on Taemin’s shoulder when he got too fired up and angry - about whatever story he was working on, about the state of the world, about politics - and said in that gentle voice of his ‘ _come on, let’s do something fun’_. 

Taemin hadn’t even expected to like Ten, hadn’t even been looking for a relationship when he met him. It was tragic, the way it only took a firm handshake and a ‘ _Taemin, meet Ten, one of our new photographers’_ for Taemin to fall fast and hard for the other man. 

Ten was special in a way Taemin wasn’t - in his eyes at least. He could always see the fun in life, could always find a silver lining in everything and find a way to make him smile. He was incredibly well-read, and had this fascinating, artistic mind that never failed to have Taemin in awe. He was a photographer, an artist, dabbled in painting and fashion, managed to pull off incredibly cool makeups when they went all out for Halloween parties - Taemin’s favourite year was that year they had gone as very flamboyant versions of Dumbledore and Grindelwald. Ten’s idea, of course. 

Taemin shook his head and tried to ignore the sinking feeling in his stomach and the emptiness inside his chest. No. There was no point in focusing on that. There was no point in looking at the past with rose-colored glasses, they had also had their fair share of arguments in the three years they spent together. Taemin worked too much. Ten took ages to be serious about their relationship. Taemin was never out to his family - not that he had much contact with them - and Ten took issue with that. Ten was messy and Taemin was forgetful. 

_Source of contributions: Small individual contributions (52.6%), Large donations (20.6%), PAC Contributions (17.7%), Others (9.1%). Main contributors: Californian Conservative Association, San Francisco Bay Area Andrew Morris Fund._

Because really, when he thought about it, it was mainly Ten’s fault that the relationship had fizzled. He never understood Taemin’s complicated history with his family and the reasons why it prevented him from coming out to them and introducing Ten as his boyfriend. He never compromised, and they went his way on most decisions - what to eat, where to go on holiday. Ten wanted to live in North Beach, Taemin prefered Glen Park. They’d ended up in North Beach. Ten still lived in that apartment.

No, Taemin. Focus.

_Other contributors: Californian Petroleum Association - $400,453._

Damn, Ten still had Taemin’s old Berkeley hoodie-- okay, that was enough.

Taemin sighed as he leaned back in his chair, before promptly standing up. He opened the balcony doors and stepped out, breathing in the cold air. Taemin’s apartment was crazy expensive for a studio apartment - while he was a successful journalist, writing for the _Tribune_ didn’t exactly make cash rain - but it was in his favourite neighborhood, and it came with a balcony. He was thankful for that.

Clicking his lighter, Taemin watched as an orange glow warmed up the dark blue of the night, and lit up the tip of his cigarette. Smoking was a bad habit, he knew it - Ten kept nagging him to stop - but he had other worries on his mind at the moment. Taking a deep breath, he leaned on the balcony’s wrought iron railing - he’d fallen for it instantly when visiting the apartment. 

Taemin was pulled from his thoughts by a vibration in his back pocket and the distinct _ping_ of a Tinder notification.

Taemin mentally cursed Taeyong and Kibum for the tenth time that day. Although, to be fair, for all the whining he did about having been forced to get Tinder, he still hadn’t deleted the app. He’d talked to a few people - even met up with a guy for drinks. Adam, his name was. They’d hit it off just fine. He had curly brown hair, soft green eyes and stubble that toed the line between cleanly maintained and scruffy, it was hot. He was fun, and Taemin forgot about the rest of his worries for a beer or two. He almost went home with him, until the guy just _had_ to mention that he’d been to Thailand last summer, and Taemin was thrown back into a Ten-shaped pit of wallowing and heartbreak. 

  
  


**Jongin - 11:20 pm**

_so you’re a bad boy now?_

* * *

Taemin froze and did a double-take at his screen. 

Jongin? Jongin Kim? 

It had been years since Taemin had last thought of him. They’d had classes together in undergrad at Berkeley, and while Taemin mostly stuck with Kibum and Taeyong, Jongin was always kind of… around. The community for Korean-American students was tightly knit when Taemin was in college. He appreciated that, even though his family never really kept in touch with their heritage. Something about wanting their kids to blend into American culture or whatever, which was funny to Taemin, because if his parents had wanted him to blend in, they wouldn’t have given him a name that everyone mispronounced as _Taymin._

It was odd, running into Jongin again after all these years. He was fun to hang out with, back in the day. Taemin remembered countless nights spent drinking at the TapHaus, playing pool - Jongin _always_ won, and was never humble about it - and arguing over topics of varying levels of importance. Taemin distinctly remembered an evening they spent hours debating whether tigers or lions would win in a fight - _it’s obviously lions,_ Jongin had said, _they’re faster and they’re literally called the king of the jungle!_ Taemin had been absolutely outraged. _Please, tigers are much heavier and much stronger, lions don’t stand a chance!_ They never agreed to disagree. 

Jongin was Taemin’s go-to person when parties got too boring or too rowdy - neither of them really enjoyed the frat scene. Kibum and Taeyong lived for it. Taemin couldn’t even count the number of times either of them had come to find the other with a _wanna get out of here?_ and had ended up in Jongin’s dorm room, getting high and playing video games - FIFA and Mario Kart were their favourites - or debating yet again over the meaning of life and whether hot dogs qualify as sandwiches.

A shiver ran down Taemin’s spine at the specific memory of their graduation party, a night in June. Everyone was overjoyed to be done with their undergrad. Throughout the four years they knew each other, things had never been ambiguous between Taemin and Jongin. They were friends, that was it. 

But that night. That night, it was just this side of too warm, Taemin was just this side of too drunk, Jongin was just this side of too hot. Even almost four years later, Taemin could still remember the burning touch of Jongin’s hands on his hips. The dizzying sensation of his plush lips dragging along his neck, and his body pressed against him. The way the cheap bedsheets crumpled underneath his fingertips, the sound of Jongin’s deep voice as he whispered in his ear _fuck, Taemin, you’re so beautiful, so good_ . The muffled sounds of the music playing in some far-off room, whatever the hit song was that summer. The maddening, all-consuming want he felt, and how it all just made _sense_.

And then it was over, just as suddenly as it happened. Jongin had a girlfriend - beautiful, smart Soojung - who was going to Columbia Law School with him. Taemin was staying on at Berkeley for his master’s in journalism. Everything that seemed to make sense within the dimly-lit confines of Jongin’s dorm room that night, everything that seemed to make sense in their touches, their kisses, their shared looks and whispers, suddenly made no sense.

Taemin never saw him again after that.

* * *

Jongin’s pictures were pretty standard - a picture with a dog, a picture in a bar with some artisanal craft beer, a picture at some protest, a picture with a few friends and a candid shot of him on the Golden Gate Bridge. Taemin didn’t remember swiping right on his profile - it must have been a collateral damage of Taeyong’s control over his phone.

Taemin almost slapped himself for smiling - _cute_ , he thought. Jongin hadn’t changed a bit. 

**Taemin - 11:26 pm**

_please ignore that bio, tyong and kibum made it for me and i cant figure out how to change it_

**Taemin - 11:27 pm**

_r u like an activist now? didn’t you go to law school after cal?_

**Jongin - 11:27 pm**

_no way, you still hang out with them! i can show you how to change it if you wan_ t

**Jongin - 11:27 pm**

_in a way. i’m an attorney at greenpeace_

**Jongin - 11:28 pm**

_what do you do?_

So it was going to be that type of conversation, huh? The awkward back-and-forth when running into old friends and finding out that, taken out of the specific context of college, you don’t really have anything to say to each other?

**Taemin - 11:31 pm**

_oh thats cool. i work at the tribune._

**Jongin - 11:32 pm**

_oh yeah i remember you were going in for journalism. fancy_

**Taemin - 11:34 pm**

_says the lawyer at an international environmental org lol_

**Taemin - 11:35 pm**

_take it u cant sleep either huh?_

**Jongin - 11:36 pm**

_nah i’ve just been binge watching black mirror and i needed a break before i freak out, delete all forms of social media and go live as a hermit in the woods with my dogs_

**Taemin - 11:37 pm**

_so ur solution to coping with the impending system of mass surveillance enabled by social media was to open an app that tracks ur location, with an algorithm that memorizes which kind of person u like and is linked to ur facebook?_

**Taemin - 11:40 pm**

_just kidding. please don’t freak out. its nice talking to u again._

**Jongin - 11:41 pm**

_you’re lucky you’re still so beautiful. i’d be packing up for the woods already if not_

**Taemin - 11:41 pm**

_r u flirting right now?_

**Jongin - 11:42 pm**

_did i die and get reborn in an alternate reality where tinder is an app for people to talk about their jobs with old college friends they hooked up with and never saw again?_

So Jongin was opting to be _that_ blunt about it. Cool, cool, cool, cool, cool - Taemin cursed himself for watching all those Brooklyn Nine-Nine reruns - that was fine. Completely fine. Not a single cell in Taemin’s body was freaking out.

**Taemin - 11:43 pm**

...

**Taemin - 11:43 pm**

_fair enough._

**Taemin - 11:43 pm**

_what r u doing tomorrow night?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I originally intended for this to be a one-part work, but it was getting too long and I wasn't even nearly at the beginning of the intrigue.  
> So it's chaptered!  
> Let me know what you guys thought, comments make me soft ♥ 
> 
> Hit me up on [twitter](https://twitter.com/jnmpia)


	2. could be my habit

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> title from habit - still woozy

“So you’re telling me… what?”

“I’m telling you that the receptionist’s behavior was odd when I went in.”

“You’re telling me you didn’t get an interview.”

“No, I’m just saying, it seems suspicious--”

“Well, _did_ you get an interview?”

“... No,” Taemin was sitting in Baekhyun’s office, going over the notes he’d gathered so far on his investigation, “hear me out though. She seemed adamant to go over any questions I would ask Wong or Suh. Their office is ridiculously old and crappy, and yet for some reason they have a protocol for press relations? I don’t buy it. I doubt hardly anyone knows they’re in business with Morris, there’s no way they have a protocol for anything press-related. It literally looks like they set up shop a week ago and haven’t had time to re-do the paint or decorate. I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a shit load of lead in there.”

“So, you’re telling me that my tip was good and that I’m a great editor for giving it to you?” A cocky smile danced on Baekhyun’s lips as he leaned back in his chair, hands victoriously folding behind his head.

Taemin scoffed a little. Baekhyun was always like that. He’d been working for the Shadow team under his supervision for a little over a year, he was well acquainted with his antics. It had thrown him off, at first. Editors at the _Tribune_ had a reputation for being stern, and demanding - the ones Taemin had known before transferring departments, at least. While he had high standards for his section, Baekhyun was quite the opposite. He’d been nothing but friendly to Taemin when he arrived, and it seemed that despite his young age, he managed to hold his hierarchical position even with Hannah, Bess and Arthur. He put his foot down when needed, but always highly regarded the people on his team and in the other departments. 

Late nights spent bundled in blankets over their desks, downing gallons of coffee, fueling on the Chinese takeout from down the street and typing away in order to meet impossible deadlines had gotten them closer. By that point, Taemin almost considered Baekhyun his friend. His editor had taken him out to dinner a couple of times. He’d insisted on buying Taemin a different kind of candy every day after finding out about his breakup with Ten. Today was strawberry gummies. Baekhyun was, in all regards, your standard definition of a good boss. A good guy.

“Whatever helps you sleep at night,” Taemin replied equally as playfully, which earned him a crumpled up piece of paper tossed at his face. He laughed, picked it up, and promptly threw it in the bin. Dead shot, once again confirming Taemin’s theory that Coach Johnson had made a _tragic_ mistake turning him down for the local basketball team when he was seven, “but it does seem like a good lead. I don’t think we’ll get much out of them by going the traditional way, though. In any case, if they’re dabbling in hack-for-hire against these environmental organisations, admitting to anything would either subject them to serious jail time, or risk whoever hired them to get suspicious and delete any evidence.”

Baekhyun was twirling a pen between his fingers, staring at the ceiling. Taemin could almost see the gears turning in his head as he searched for a way to go about this. “So we can’t set off any radar at Senator Morris’ office. These hack-for-hire companies, how do they operate? That can’t be very legal, can it?”

“See, that’s where it gets tricky. It took me a while to get it, but it’s a grey area,” Taemin leaned forward, elbows resting on his knees as he thumbed through his notepad, “basically you’ve got federal laws forbidding hacking, like the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, and then you’ve got state laws regulating that as well. You could get fined or imprisoned in California,” he continued, holding a finger up when Baekhyun looked at him with a smug _so I’m right_ expression on his face, “but the act of hacking itself is not illegal. NCT could pose as a company that offers ethical hacking for its clients, to strengthen their firewalls or something like that, with full consent.” 

“And? Do they?”

“Do you want the short answer or the long answer?” Taemin chewed on his lower lip, “Short answer is that we don’t really know exactly _what_ they do. For a tech company, they’re surprisingly invisible online, their website barely has any information apart from a domain name, the names of the owners, date of foundation and contact information. The only thing I know about NCT, from that freedom of information request I sent to Morris’ campaign office, is that they’re in charge of handling cyber security for Morris’ website. From what I can tell, they don’t have any other clients.”

“And what’s the long answer?” Baekhyun leaned forward, elbows resting on the desk and eyes fixated on the copy of Taemin’s notes he had, highlighting every few words.

“Long answer is that judging by how dodgy their office looks and how little information we have on them for a company that deals with public officials’ cybersecurity, they could very much be a coverup for any kind of shady activity - money laundering, embezzlement, barely legal investments from Morris’ team for god knows what, you name it. How did you even find out about them anyway?”

“Anonymous tip. Basically someone was at a business dinner and overheard Morris vaguely talking about NCT and environmental organizations and how, quote, ‘ _if_ _this information gets out we’re done for.'_ ” Baekhyun explained. His eyes were shining with that usual excitement that got to him whenever a story got interesting, Taemin could recognize it from miles away.

“Gotcha. Do you know that tipper? Did they record anything? Is there any way I can get in contact with them?” _Ping._ Taemin clicked his pen and ignored the buzzing coming from his jeans pocket - he could get that later.

“They came to me with the information, but they wish to remain anonymous. I can ask them if they’d be willing to talk to you,” _ping,_ “the way I see it, you’ve got two options for going about this. Either you insist with NCT, try to get a meeting with them, and build information off of what you can gather from what they say and what you can see in their offices,” _ping_ , “although I don’t think that will lead to anything concrete,” _ping_ , “or you can go the other way and directly contact the organisations that were hacked so that you can--” _ping_ , “damnit, Taemin! Can you just get that, or shut your phone off or something?” Baekhyun snapped, making Taemin laugh a little.

“Sorry, sorry,” he smiled while fishing his phone from his pocket. Taemin gave his lock screen a glance, eyebrows immediately knitting in confusion. 

**Tenteretenten ♥ - 2:22 pm**

_hey_

**Tenteretenten ♥ - 2:23 pm**

_i know its been a while. i needed time._

**Tenteretenten ♥ - 2:24 pm**

_so the head of photography told me i was working with u on a shoot, dunno if u knew_

**Tenteretenten ♥ - 2:24 pm**

_can we try to keep this professional_

**Tenteretenten ♥ - 2:25 pm**

_i can ask someone else to do the shoot if ur not feeling it_

  
  


Taemin thought that maybe it was time to change Ten’s name in his phone.

“What the hell, Baekhyun? You’re assigning me to assist Ten in a shoot? I can’t believe this, you _know_ damn well what happened---” 

“Taemin, Taemin!” Baekhyun held his hand up to get Taemin to stop speaking - or to stop spiralling, as it were, “I was going to talk to you about it today,” he started, carefully weighing and choosing his words, “Hannah is out of town for the week, and these pictures need to be done by tomorrow so we can get to editing and the story can go to print for Saturday. Please? I know it’s uncomfortable but you know what story she’s putting out, you can help with directing the photographers, and I’m having back to back meetings until late after this.”

“Can’t Arthur or Bess do it? Or an intern? Or literally anybody else in this building?”

“Arhur is in DC right now, Bess is off to Salt Lake City for that cult story. And you know this story is confidential, nobody other than Shadow knows about it. Hannah would rip me a new one if she found out I’d given her photoshoot to some art director’s intern, and the story got leaked before Saturday.”

Taemin crossed his arms and stared at his editor, chewing on his lower lip. Baekhyun was unbelievable, dropping this bomb on him after knowing exactly what had happened between him and Ten - Taemin might have spilled the beans after one drink too many.

“... Fine. I can’t believe this. You owe me, like, twelve days off fully paid,” Taemin mumbled, gathering his stuff.

“No way.”

“Five days off?”

“Taemin I can’t do that, I’m not HR.”

“Like, a bigger desk, then.”

“Does it look like we’re made of money?” Baekhyun motioned to the outdated furniture and the ancient fax machine in the corner.

“Alright. You’re buying me dinner, make it fancy. Fucking hell,” Taemin swore as he got up, giving Baekhyun on last disgruntled look before exiting his office, holding himself back from flipping him off when he heard Baekhyun’s laughter and a falsly outraged _language!_

* * *

Taemin’s leg was nervously, repeatedly shaking as he sat on the bench outside the _Tribune_ ’s headquarters. He glanced at his watch, once, twice. A third time, for good measure. 

He had agreed to work with Ten on this project. _Just once_ , he made Baekhyun swear on his and his corgi’s life. It was a one-off thing, Hannah’s story on allegations of sexual misconduct from Stanford University officials had to be ready for print by Friday evening, so it could come out on Saturday. Taemin was the only person available who knew about the story and could guide the photoshoot. No matter how many times he twisted it over in his head, there was no other solution - they had to work together on this. And they had to be peaceful and reasonable about it.

This was classic Ten _._ They’d agreed to meet around 6:30 pm outside the building, so they could take the right pictures of the models - twelve anonymized faces, to symbolize the twelve students who had come out to speak out against the director of international affairs at Stanford. It was Taemin’s idea, even though this wasn’t his story, but he knew Hannah would love it.

6:42 pm. 

_Ping._

No Ten in sight. 

_Classic Ten._

**Jongin - 6:42 pm**

_are we still hanging out tonight?_

A small smile tugged at the corner of Taemin’s lips at that. Between the increasingly complicated implications of the story he was following and the emotional clusterfuck that came with knowing he had to see his ex-boyfriend again, Taemin had almost forgotten about Jongin. _Almost_ being the keyword. 

His hair flew into his eyes slightly, so he tucked a piece behind his ear.

**Taemin - 6:44 pm**

_yes please. can we go to a bar or something? ill need a drink_

**Jongin - 6:44 pm**

_rough day?_

**Taemin - 6:45 pm**

_something like that_

“What are you smiling at your phone for?” Taemin almost jumped in surprise before looking up. 

His body had always had an instant reaction to everything that was Ten. His breath caught in his throat, his hands turned clammy. His heart rate sped up and it was as if he’d forgotten all his words but _fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck._

“How’s Louis doing?” he blurted out. _Way to go, Taemin! Your first words to your ex-boyfriend in weeks and all you can say is ‘how’s the cat’. Bravo,_ his inner wisdom whisper-screamed at him. 

Unsurprisingly, Ten laughed. 

A soft sound that reached Taemin’s ears and sent a shiver down his spine. He’d missed it, the way Ten would laugh almost quietly. Never with bad intentions, Ten laughed like he loved. Honest, genuine and lively. Warm. 

His hair was black now, not the soft shade of brown he had a few weeks back. The one he had when he told Taemin _I’m sorry… His name is Kun. It just… happened._ _I’m sorry._ He must have dyed it. Ten was always good at that, he was the one who’d dyed Taemin’s hair a light shade of blonde, almost white-ish. His roots were starting to show. Taemin didn’t really care.

“Louis is doing fine. He misses you.” Ouch. Soft blow to the chest, in between his ribs, slightly to the left. It hurt. They’d only had their cat for a few months - it still hurt. Ironically, Taemin was the one who wanted to get a cat when they moved in together - Ten had called it his nesting instincts. _Ironically_ , because Louis never really cared about Taemin, and latched onto Ten immediately when they brought him home. It made sense that Ten would keep him. Taemin had a small apartment, was always away at work, and the cat didn’t care for him. Still, _ouch_. 

“Give him a nose boop for me,” Taemin breathed out with a soft smile. It was forced, it _looked and felt forced_ . Damn, how did Taemin only now realize how handsome Ten looked? Stress and sleepless nights had given Taemin’s skin a pale tint and his undereyes a bluish hue. Ten was glowing - he was always glowing. Always pretty, always _perfect_. He looked so good. Taemin missed him so much. 

“Will do. By the way, I… I got this for you,” Ten opened his tote bag - the one he’d gotten at the Museum of Modern Arts in New York, when they went together the previous winter. 

It had snowed on their first night there. _I could stay here with you forever_ , Ten had whispered as they watched a white coat drape itself over the bustling city on their airbnb’s rooftop terrace. The cold was biting, and the snow down below, on the roads where cars piled up and passerbys hurried along to complete their last-minute christmas shopping, quickly turned to mush the next day. None of them minded. 

What they remembered wasn’t the brown slush on the side of the street, or their hands and cheeks turning red from the freezing temperatures and weather-inappropriate clothes, or the bad cold Taemin had caught on the plane back. They didn’t remember the afternoon they managed to get lost _six_ times on their way to the High Line, _I told you we should have asked someone_ , Taemin had said, _How was I supposed to know the subway was closed for renovations, I’ve been here exactly as long as you have_! Ten had snapped back, prompting Taemin to laugh and tug his boyfriend’s beanie over his eyes, _you went to college here, you idiot._

They remembered that night, on that rooftop, where time seemed to stop for the two of them and a small piece of eternity was born.

Ten pulled out Taemin’s old college hoodie, a worn shade of dark blue with peeling yellow letters across the front. “Figured you might want it back. Also I can’t let people think I went to college on the West Coast,” he added with a chuckle - it was a very awkward situation, but Taemin couldn’t find it in him to care. He just wanted to hear him laugh.

_Ping._

**Jongin - 6:48 pm**

_let’s go to lucky 1! bet you i can still crush you at pool. meet you there 8:30?_

The small sound and buzzing noise reminded Taemin to quickly lock and put away his phone. Having to meet an ex-boyfriend and spend an extended period of time with him for professional reasons was awkward, but doing all those things _and_ getting busted by said ex using Tinder, that was just pathetic.

“Thank you, Ten. It’s good to see you again,” he blurted out. Taemin hadn’t agreed when Ten had asked for ‘no hard feelings’, _how could you ask for that after what you just told me,_ he’d said. But they’d agreed to be mature about this assignment. It was also genuinely good to see him again.

* * *

**Taemin - 7:53 pm**

_u wish. ive been practising. omw now._

* * *

“All these years and you still can’t drink anything that doesn’t have five pounds of sugar in it,” Taemin said with a playful grin when Jongin came back to the table with their drinks. He’d gone for a regular Belgian beer he knew he liked - none of that craft, artisanal beer Taeyong always made him try. He laughed a little and pointed to the strawberry candy on the side of Jongin’s glass, “that’s fun, I’ve been eating those all day.” Baekhyun’s daily emotional support candy.

“All these years and you’re still leeching off of me,” Jongin said equally as playfully, causing Taemin to gasp in pure outrage.

“I said I was getting the next round!” he nudged the other’s shoulder. “Alright, alright. What are we toasting to?”

“Hm… Do you want the sentimental toast or the pragmatic toast?”

“Pragmatic first, then we’ll see how the night goes,” a suggestive smile tugged at the corner of Taemin’s lips. They never explicitly said it was a date - they didn’t even really text that much besides figuring out details for when and where to meet. But Jongin never explicitly said it _wasn’t_ a date, so Taemin felt comfortable navigating that grey area.

“In that case,” Jongin raised his glass, a quirk of his eyebrows prompting Taemin to do the same, “let’s toast to Tinder’s algorithm for figuring out that I mostly swipe right on cute guys with dogs in their main picture, and for that algorithm getting us here tonight,” his voice was as deep as Taemin remembered it to be - he really hadn’t changed. Jongin had always been a flirt, even before things got ambiguous between them. He’d always been a _handsome_ flirt, that hadn’t changed either. If anything, the five years they lost track of each other had done Jongin good - he seemed stronger, more mature. His eyes burned with confidence and that particular twinkle you only really see in people who know exactly who they are, what they care about, what they believe in and where they’re going. It got Taemin all kinds of confused. All kinds of _flustered._

Silence fell over the table for a few moments, before Taemin let out a bright laughter and raised his eyebrows. “What kind of toast was that? You’re seriously not going to toast to… I don’t know, long lost friendship, or how nice this late September San Franciscan night is, or how beautiful I look tonight?” It made Jongin laugh - good, they hadn’t lost that dynamic. Playing along.

“You asked for pragmatic,” he deadpanned, “I’ll toast to the algorithm first, then we’ll see how the night goes.” Jongin leaned back in his seat, and the way he stared at Taemin - unwavering, with a hint of laziness, _sultry_ \- made him glad that the lightings were dim and that Jongin couldn’t see the heat rising to his cheeks and painting them pink. 

Jongin’s forwardness, despite how welcome it was and how it matched Taemin’s own toeing of the line of ambiguity, threw him off. He didn’t know exactly how to react - should he match or outmatch him - and he didn’t know if the fact that he didn’t know what to say came from the awkwardness of the situation or from how _aware_ he was of Jongin’s presence now, their knees bumping under the small table, his shirt sleeves rolled up to his elbows and showing the veins in his forearms, that little strand of hair that fell in his eyes. 

Overall, it was a lot of confusion, a lot of feelings. It was a _lot_.

He must have been silent for a beat too long.

“Did I make this awkward? Oh god, I’m so sorry, I was just trying to match your vibe,” he heard Jongin say quickly, it snapped Taemin out of the trance he’d been put in for a hot second, “you know how we used to do that thing of throwing the ball back and forth whenever we talked? I was emulating that, was it too much? God.” Jongin buried his face in his hands with a desperate chuckle, hands then running up and through his hair. He peeked up at Taemin and smiled. 

There was the Jongin he knew.

“It was too much! Dude, you’re just giving me bedroom eyes in the middle of a crowded bar, not even going to talk about the fact that you got, like, _hot_ , how do you expect me to react?” Taemin hadn’t even thought twice before speaking, it was a feature of most conversations he had with Jongin, back then. Apparently still had. They brought out a spontaneity in each other, an inevitable lightness of being, a comfort that Taemin had a hard time finding with anybody else, no matter how close he was to them. Things with Jongin were _easy_.

“What? Bedroom eyes?” Jongin almost choked on his sip of cocktail, “you’re talking about my bedroom eyes, and you’re sitting there with _blonde hair_ and like, a thousand ear piercings, looking like every anime guy I used to fawn over when I was fourteen ever, and you’re talking about my bedroom eyes? Get your head out of your ass, Taemin,” Jongin was laughing, it made Taemin feel warm inside. 

“Oh yeah, the hair. Looks different right?” Taemin had been a hair virgin before Ten dyed it for him - he never really cared much about fashion or style before their relationship. Things were different now. “My boy-- ah, ex-boyfriend did it for me. I should get the roots touched up, Kibum told me that the combination of almost white and black makes me look like a poor attempt at an asian Cruella de Vil.” He’d flicked Kibum’s forehead for saying that, although he wasn’t entirely wrong.

“You’d never steal puppies to make fur coats out of them,” Jongin reasoned with his lips pursed, “and I’m sorry about your boyfriend. I mean, ex-boyfriend, you know. Recent?” Taemin almost wanted to scoff - Jongin had always been so damn _nice_.

“Yeah. I had to work with him today, that was… fun.”

“Seems fun,” Jongin replied ironically, “is that why you had a rough day and needed a drink?”

“Yup,” Taemin popped the ‘p’ and took a swig from his beer.

“Do you want to talk about it or do you want me to bore you with an update of my life for the past five years to get your mind off of things? I’ll show you pictures of my dogs,” he offered gently. Jongin was so _nice_ , there was no other way to put it. It made Taemin’s heart hurt a bit. He glanced down to his beer, then to Jongin, finding a genuinely fond look in his eyes, then to his beer again as he took a sip and a soft chuckle shook his shoulders.

“So what have you been up to these past five years?” 

* * *

Jongin’s life had been pretty standard, Taemin had learned. He’d gone to New York for law school, interned with a few firms and graduated with flying colors. His sister had kids - a boy and a girl, and Taemin had to actively tell Jongin to tone the cooing down when he showed him what felt like a hundred pictures of the kids, and other patrons were staring at him for being too loud in his adoration. He had two dogs, and Taemin couldn’t actually remember the names because this time it was him who did the excessive cooing and demanded that Jongin sent him more pictures. He’d been in a few relationships - his thing with Soojung fizzled quickly after she learned that he was bisexual - but nothing too serious. _That blows man_ , Taemin had said, and Jongin had replied with a _we both know why I wasn’t invested in my relationship with her anyway_ , which made Taemin’s breath catch in his throat momentarily. He had washed the lump down with a sip of his beer and quickly changed the subject.

“And then he asks me what I do for a living, so I tell him that I’m an environmental lawyer, and you know what he says?” Taemin shook his head in response, deeply invested in Jongin’s retelling of his worst Tinder hookup ever, “dude pulls out a MAGA hat from his closet and tells me that I have to see reason and that I’m too smart to believe ‘ _these leftie normies who lie about global warming, everyone knows it’s a Chinese hoax'_ \- I’m quoting him there.” Taemin was holding his sides from how much he was laughing, while Jongin nodded in a _I can’t believe it either, man_ manner.

“Dude, why did you even swipe right on him? There must have been signs, surely,” he dipped a fry into some mayonnaise - the food wasn’t bad at this bar, Jongin had been right.

“Yeah, I went back to look at his profile after getting home and taking, like, six consecutive showers, and his bio said ‘ _No fats, no femmes_ ’, which is, you know. All levels of wrong and shitty. It obviously didn’t say no asians, but shit, if it did it would have spared me a night of existential crisis and reevaluating my life choices.” Jongin grinned, stealing the last fry from their shared bowl, earning a pout from Taemin.

“Why are you even on that app? You’re like, the biggest softie I’ve ever known. _True love_ and all that bullshit, do you remember in sophomore year when I spent about half my time comforting you because you kept getting your heart broken over girls you’d known for a week?” he’d never really minded the comforting. Jongin was sweet and eager to love, Taemin liked that. He’d never really been that way himself, never really invested in relationships. He much preferred keeping things casual and saving time and mental space for work or college Well, until he met Ten.

“Man, I don’t know. I got back to San Francisco last year, I felt alone and I didn’t really know anyone here anymore,” unlike Taemin, who was a born and raised San Franciscan through and through, Jongin came from a small town in Minnesota and never really kept in touch with anybody from Berkeley, “and it felt too awkward to reach out to you, Kibum or Tyong, you know? I wanted to, so much. I missed _you_ ,” maybe he emphasized the ‘you’ while staring at Taemin, maybe that meant something, or maybe Taemin was being delusional again, “but what do you even say after basically dropping off the face of the Earth for five years? I didn’t even know if you were mad at me. I felt like throwing up because I was so nervous when I sent you that message on the app.” Taemin made a surprised face and took a sip from his cocktail - Jongin had convinced him to try it, and despite being sickeningly sweet, it wasn’t that bad.

“Why would I be mad at you?”

“I mean, we fucked and then I never spoke to you again. That seems like enough of a reason.”

“Fair enough,” Taemin laughed a bit and took a drag from his cigarette - they’d migrated to the beer garden, the inside of the bar was too loud, too crowded. Outside felt nicer, more intimate, “but for the record, I never regretted what happened,” he was speaking slower, this felt like an important conversation. It felt like finally addressing the elephant in the room, “I regretted not keeping in touch with you, and I regretted that things ended on that note. I never regretted that night.” 

Jongin looked at him, and for the first time that evening - or, ever - Taemin felt like he couldn’t read his expression. His fingers tapped against the table, and his other hand was fiddling with the stem of his cocktail glass, but he gave no sign of tension. He just looked at Taemin. For a while. 

“I never regretted it either,” he said simply, and took a sip from his straw to punctuate his sentence. “You know, smoking is bad for you,” _so, changing the subject?_ Taemin thought.

“I know,” he shrugged, and took another drag, before laughing a bit when Jongin reached over to fish a cigarette from Taemin’s pack, “hypocrite.”

“Shut up,” Jongin laughed quietly. The music from inside the bar could be heard, and _fuck_. It was that same song that was playing that one early June evening five years ago, Taemin remembered it now. It was _Drunk in Love._ This was almost laughably cliché. _Of fucking course_ the anthem to their drunken hook-up had been _Drunk in Love_ , how could he even have forgotten? That song was basically everywhere that year, played at every single party they went to. Taemin caught Jongin’s gaze and a similar smile tugged at their lips, _acknowledgment_. 

“Do you---”

“Yeah,” Taemin cut him off and shook his head, laughing at the sheer ridiculousness of the situation. 

“I always think about you when I hear this song,” Jongin said, almost too quietly, almost as an off-hand comment before he took a drag from his cigarette, not taking his eyes off of Taemin, and it was torture. 

“I forgot it was that song,” Taemin admitted bashfully.

“I didn’t.”

They were friends who had something - used to have something. A temporary lapse of judgment, a moment of insanity filled with yearning sighs and stares heavy with something more, an unexplained and unexplainable tug at the pit of their stomachs and in the beating of their hearts. It pulled them closer, closer, ever closer, it brought lips on exposed skin, hands buried in hair and faint moans behind the intimacy of a closed door - dorm room number 496, fourth floor, third door to the right in the second to last corridor. 

_Drunk in Love_ was playing.

They were friends.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter is full of feelings™️ and i had a lot of fun writing it. there's not much in terms of the intrigue regarding taemin's story for shadow, i'm still working it out in my head
> 
> i hope you guys liked it! i wasn't sure how to introduce jongin in the story but i feel comfortable with what i wrote
> 
> i love knowing what you guys thought, drop your impressions in the comments ♥
> 
> Hit me up on [twitter](https://twitter.com/jnmpia)


	3. can you focus?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> title from focus - h.e.r

“What are we doing here again?”

“We’re trying to gather information about hacks in these organisations’ networks and leaks of information.” Taemin adjusted Baekhyun’s tie and fixed his own press pass around his neck. He knew Baekhyun didn’t mind black tie events, but he never really felt comfortable in them. Taemin’s way of working was more subdued - he liked meeting up with people over coffee, writing down shorthand informations in his precious notepads, having casual conversations that could eventually lead somewhere, once the people he talked to became comfortable enough. Comfort, to Taemin, was the foam on top of lattes in those trendy coffee shops, it was the smooth Spotify playlist playing in the background, and the sound of milk steamers, the clinging of ceramic cups. Not uncomfortable suits, freshly re-dyed blonde hair and champagne glasses. There was only so much eavesdropping could do, but Baekhyun had insisted.

“And what’s our cover again?” Baekhyun asked as he chewed on a salmon canapé.

“We’re just writing a short news piece about the gala. They invited us here for press coverage.” Luckily for them, the event was held in Oakland once more, which made access easier. Greenpeace tended to hold these events in California - the proximity of the Silicon Valley and Hollywood made for easy celebrity invites, and a relatively supportive political terrain in a largely Democratic area.

“Baekhyun, what do you need me to do here?” Ten brushed a piece of his hair behind his ear.

Ten was radiant, his hair styled in that effortlessness that seemed to accompany his entire being. He was smiling, graceful as ever, and he’d been polite to Taemin from the very beginning of the evening.

Even when he broke up with Taemin over eggs and bacon one Sunday morning - he should have known something was up, Ten always made pancakes on Sunday mornings, he hadn’t that day - Ten had been nice. Gentle, saddened, _sorry about everything. I truly did love you._ Even though he ruined even the smell of eggs and bacon for Taemin for what he was sure would be a while, he’d been considerate about it. Taemin admired that. He hadn’t exactly been mature or considerate lately. He didn’t like this side of himself, the one that forgot to be good.

Taemin had been _mortified_ when Baekhyun had announced that, on top of trying to gather information for his investigation and writing a piece about the event for their special edition magazine at the _Tribune_ , as a cover-up for the real reason of their being here, Ten would be attending as well to take photos. _Te_ _n is one of the best we have, Taemin, and the magazine team insisted on good photography for this. You know they’re much more visual than the paper, they need quality content,_ Baekhyun had reasoned him. During the meeting they had had in preparation for the event, where they’d filled Ten up on the investigation they were leading so that he knew what was going on - he swore to secrecy, press ethic and all that - Taemin couldn’t help but glare at him from time to time. He looked so _happy_ , and it hurt just this side of too much. How dare he be happy, when Taemin himself was barely starting to get over the initial shock of their break-up, barely starting to sleep through the night and eat properly again? Maybe it was selfish, and childish, and everything bad-ish, but Taemin couldn’t help it. If Ten couldn’t have spared him any decency by breaking up with him _before_ sleeping with someone else, then he was allowed to be petty. Well, he thought so, at least. 

_This is a work event so we’re not allowed to bring dates. How is Kun doing, by the way?_ He’d told Ten during that meeting, his arms and legs crossed as he leaned back in his seat. It was definitely childish, but he deserved it. Taemin hadn’t missed the way Ten had frowned and blushed that deep shade of pink he always did whenever he was flustered - _pretty_ , he’d thought - and Baekhyun had sighed deeply and once again begged the two of them to be mature about this. Taemin had calmed down after Baekhyun gave them a talking down. Angry Baekhyun was scary Baekhyun.

“Hang around, take pictures of the main speakers and main events for the magazine piece, maybe try to get a picture of the local leaders. If you hear anything at all relating directly or indirectly to the subject of Taemin’s investigation, listen as much as you can and report immediately to him.” Baekhyun had said with a smile, he looked happy with the more peaceful dynamics between Taemin and Ten that evening. 

“Got it. Keep your phone close to you, Taemin, okay? I’ll text you if you’re too far away to reach.” Thank god he’d changed Ten’s name in his phone, from _Tenteretenten ♥_ to a plain and simple _Ten_. Taemin couldn’t handle seeing that dumb nickname anymore.

Ten gave a simple nod and smile before walking away as duty called. When he was out of sight and earshot, Baekhyun reached over to rub Taemin’s shoulder when he’d let out a long sigh of relief, and took his hand in both of his own.

“You’re doing good. Thank you for stepping up for me, I need you on this, I need your insights and your best work. You’re my diamond in the rough, Taemin, don’t screw it all up because of some guy,” Baekhyun’s words, uttered in this warm, honey-like tone of his he always got whenever he saw something was up with Taemin, were soothing and brought a semblance of peace in him. 

* * *

Galas, Taemin was beginning to learn, were boring. Sure, the subject matter was interesting, and he was there for work, so he inevitably had things to do. He’d gotten enough notes and interviews for his cover-up magazine article, but nothing gave on his investigation, no matter how many people he talked to, and tried to discreetly bring up the subject of cyber security to between off-the-record chats, two cups of champagne and fancy hors d’oeuvres, _it’s crazy what’s been going on with those hacks from Russia on all these companies, I know it worries us a little bit at the Tribune,_ \- always give the other people a reason to relate with you, antagonizing is the opposite of a good idea when it came to fishing for information.

Nothing gave, the fish didn’t bite even when he talked to lower-ranked people in Greenpeace’s hierarchy. They must have had a protocol for not letting the story get out - or maybe, if they were lacking on cyber security, they weren’t even aware of their websites being hacked and information getting out on their lobbying strategies and ongoing lawsuits. It was possible. Highly unlikely, but possible.

Representatives from Senator Morris’ team were even there - Morris had been unluckily unable to attend that evening, _figures_ , Taemin had thought. Morris’ communications director had given a speech, about how proud they were of California’s ability for community organizing around such an important issue as climate change - _fucking hypocrites_. Taemin itched to go to them, question them about their shady involvement with NCT and about what their dealings were, about the unexplained lines in their donation records that toed the line between the legal obligation for transparency and the right to secrecy when it came to Morris’ personal fund management and records. About their repeated decision to favour big oil companies in public investment in California as opposed to renewables, when both the energy offers were equally as competitive and stood at an equal price, about _why_ they were even invited to the event in the first place in light of all that, if not for a good bout of maintaining public image for an ever-growing liberal electorate in California. 

He held back, though. Baekhyun had insisted he’d be the one to reach out to Morris’ team at the event. He had more experience and lacked that burning hot, biting passion that made Taemin a good investigative journalist, but that also made him reckless and liable. He had to hold back, he had to ignore the gnawing pull in his stomach that came with the knowledge of such a potential violation of democratic principles.

Taemin was standing near one of those tall cocktail tables, quickly scribbling away his thoughts and ideas in his small notebook before putting it back in the inner pocket of his jacket, when someone placed a heavy hand on his shoulders.

“Now what are you doing here?” The deep voice reached his ears before he could turn around, and _of course_ , Taemin thought sarcastically. He laughed and wow, Jongin was a sight for sore eyes dressed up to the nines. He looked grown, mature and impressive in what looked like a rather expensive suit. Taemin could smell his cologne from here - that hadn’t changed, he still wore that same subtle musky, dizzying fragrance he used to wear in college, and _oh_ did it do it for him in more ways than one. It took a few seconds for Jongin’s words to register in Taemin’s brain, past the initial shock of seeing him so obviously _there_. 

“I’m… I’m working, what are _you_ doing h-- Oh. Right. Lawyer,” it made Taemin laugh as he rubbed his forehead. Of course, he should have connected the dots sooner. He didn’t even know why he hadn’t figured it out before, he knew Jongin was a new lawyer at Greenpeace, he’d told him on Tinder, they’d talked about it that night they saw each other again. It was like a twist of fate, that Jongin would be working at the organization that was at the heart of his new investigation, and that somehow he hadn’t even put two and two together before that evening. 

“Yeah,” Jongin laughed along at the absurdity of the situation and took a sip from his glass, red wine from the looks of it, “I knew we’d invited the _Tribun_ _e_ but I didn’t know they’d put you on the assignment. What are the chances?”

“What are the chances indeed,” Taemin said, a smile tugging at the corner of his lips as he looked into Jongin’s eyes for just a beat too long, prompting the other to look away. 

Jongin cleared his throat, leaned his elbow on the cocktail table and Taemin was suddenly aware of just how close the other was. “So, are you going to interview me? Can I get my picture in the paper? Jongin Kim, new hotshot lawyer at Greenpeace-- hey!” Taemin had nudged the other, red wine almost spilling out of Jongin’s glass, “be careful, this is a rented suit!”

“You’re not that important, Jongin,” Taemin teased with a grin.

“Excuse me, I’m very important!” Jongin scoffed, his eyes fixated on Taemin as he put on a falsely offended look on his face, “I’m working on a lawsuit against violations of natural habitat made by one of the car factories not far from here, it’s important! I’m going to be in court and everything, _the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth_ and all that shit!” 

“Yeah, I’m sure things will go well for you in court if you say ‘and all that shit’”, Taemin had to suppress the gasp that threatened to spill past his lips when Jongin reached out to fix a strand of Taemin’s hair at the top of his head. Baekhyun had insisted on doing his hair, parting it in the middle and leaving in the natural waves reaching his cheekbones. Taemin thought he looked like he’d rolled out of bed and hadn’t had time to brush through his waves, Baekhyun insisted it was _trendy_. 

“‘And all that shit, _your honour_ ’, have some respect for the judges Taemin,” Jongin grinned gently, “you got your roots touched up? No more Asian Cruella De Vil? It looked good on you,” Jongin teased, and it made Taemin smile a bit - once a flirt, always a flirt.

“It was getting to the point where my hair looked like an oreo with one of the cookies missing, it was ridiculous,” Taemin shook his head a bit and ran a hand through his hair, thankfully the bleaching hadn’t done too much damage, “I hope I’m not keeping you away from anyone, are you here on your own?” It seemed less obvious than asking _are you here with a date._

“I’m here with you now,” a playful smirk pulled at Jongin’s lips, and there it was again, that almost lazy, cloudy look in his eyes that he got at the bar, the one that made Taemin weak at the knees and had his mind reeling in a way that was wildly inappropriate for a professional setting. 

“You do know I’m working?” Taemin asked, quirking an eyebrow as he maintained eye contact. Nothing had happened, after that one evening at the bar. They’d pleasantly threaded the line between friendliness and flirtation, they’d made a few compliments and they’d openly talked about _that night_ , but nothing had happened. Not that Taemin was opposed to the idea, he was simply comfortable for the time being in that grey area. The emotional damage caused by his recent breakup was still very much present, and it might have been selfish, but this dynamic with Jongin was fun. Even if it got him flustered, got his cheeks red and his heart racing, got his mind swarmed with all sorts of intoxicating thoughts - Jongin’s lips when he kissed, Jongin’s hands when he touched, Jongin’s voice when he whispered - it was _fun_. 

“Yeah, you look very busy right now,” he pointed to the clear absence of interviews Taemin was giving, and to the second glass of champagne that was sitting on the table. Taemin spotted Baekhyun talking to some people from Morris’ team in the distance, making nice and laughing. Good, this was going well. 

“Okay, you got me there. I’ve kind of run out of people to talk to, to be honest,” Taemin rubbed the back of his neck embarrassedly.

“Taemin, I’m-- oh sorry, am I interrupting?” Ten had seemingly emerged out of nowhere, tugging Taemin out of the rose-colored Jongin-induced hypnosis he’d been put in and right back into cold harsh reality. It must have been visible on his face, the way it felt like his heart dropped in his stomach, because Jongin shot him a concerned look.

“No, no, you’re not interrupting. Ten, this is Jongin, he’s an old friend from Berkeley and a lawyer for Greenpeace. Jongin, this is Ten, he… works with me. He’s our photographer,” it felt weird, to introduce Ten as a colleague, and not as his boyfriend. Jongin shook Ten’s hand and gave him a polite smile, and Ten did the same. Taemin didn’t miss the split second of questioning look Ten shot him - he knew Taemin more than anyone, he knew exactly what Taemin looked like when he was interested, when he was happy and teasing, playfully flirting. 

“Nice to meet you, Jongin,” Ten said politely, before turning around and placing his hand on Taemin’s arm. It took all the willpower in him to not flinch away from the touch, not because it was unwelcome. Perhaps because it was a little _too welcome_ , because the touch burned a little too much on his skin, even through the layers of his suit, because it caused a shiver to run down his spine and heat to rise to his cheeks, because all the sudden, Taemin’s melancholy hit him like a trainwreck again, without warning, “I’m not going to bother you for too long, Taemni,” why did he have to use that nickname? “I’ve pretty much got all the photos you guys need, Baekhyun looked over them and said they were fine, so… I think I’m going to dip, unless you need me for anything else?” 

Taemin cleared his throat and shook his head with a smile, he hoped it didn’t look too forced, “no, I think I’m done here too, anyway. I’ll leave with Baekhyun once this thing is over. See you later?”

“Alright. Yeah, see you later. I’ll email you the pictures once I’m done editing them. Enjoy the rest of your evening Taem, it was nice meeting you, Jongin,” Ten said with a smile that was just a little too suggestive before leaving - he’d always been shameless like that with Taemin, and it seemed like breaking up with him didn’t erase that dynamic in the slightest.

“So… What was that?” Jongin asked, apparently having picked up on the obvious history between the two of them, “I could have cut that tension with a knife.”

“Ah… So, remember when I told you I’ve been dumped like, two months ago?” Taemin cleared his throat and sipped on his champagne nervously, an abashed smile on his lips. Jongin’s eyes turned wide and round in realization, his mouth agape as he pointed between Ten’s retreating figure and Taemin.

“That was _him_? That’s your ex boyfriend?” he half-asked, half-exclaimed, and Taemin was incredibly thankful for the noise inside the reception hall, making it virtually impossible for anyone to hear them despite the way Jongin had almost shouted, “he’s very pretty. You go well together.”

“I know he’s pretty,” Taemin scoffed a bit, watching as Ten left the reception hall. Ten had always been pretty, and gentle. He’d always been a sweet guy. Taemin’s Berkeley hoodie still smelled like him, “sorry about that, it was a little awkward.”

“Yeah it was. He seems like a nice person, though, it’s good that you guys are able to work together still,” Taemin nodded at that - Jongin didn’t need to know about his petty behavior a few days back, during the meeting with Baekhyun and Ten, “you okay?” there was a concerned look on Jongin’s face, visible in the way his eyebrows knitted together. His hand reached out to lay on Taemin’s forearm. It was a soft, gentle touch, but it felt _heavy_ to Taemin, heavy with meaning, heavy with the promise it held.

“Yeah, I’m… I don’t know,” Taemin admitted with a gentle chuckle, rubbing at his temples lightly.

“Want to get some fresh air?” they had always done that, apparently from frat parties to fundraising events. Stepping out, just the two of them, in their own bubble, when things got too much to handle. It was simple, when they were with each other, undisturbed by whatever was going on around them, whether it was a sophomore throwing up in the corner of a wrecked frat house, or people networking around environmental lobbying. _Crazy in Love_ played on shitty speakers or soft jazz played by a live quartet. It struck Taemin, in that moment, how much they’d both grown over the past five years, and yet how little had changed between them. 

* * *

Taemin breathed in the cool evening air when they stepped out, stretching out his arms before running a hand through his hair. It felt better here. Better with Jongin.

“It’s weird to see you like that,” Jongin had gone to sit on a bench against the building and Taemin joined him there, crossing his legs to retain some body warmth, “all… sad and flustered over a guy. You were so different in college, I don’t even remember the number of times _you_ were the one breaking hearts.” It was true, Taemin had always been the less emotional person between the two of them. When he broke up with someone in college, he’d go hang out with Taeyong or Kibum, call Jongin up to play video games and he’d be over it within a few days.

“I know, I know,” Taemin said with a soft sigh, fiddling with the cheap cufflinks on his suit, “it’s just… Ten was my first _actual_ relationship, you know. Like, proper one, not like the flings I had in college. We clicked on so many levels, I can’t even explain it. We moved in together, we got a _cat_ together, for god’s sake - and you know I’m a dog person,” that made Jongin chuckle gently, “he was there for me when I cut ties with my parents, and it’s just painful to have your first adult relationship end so abruptly.” Jongin had frowned a little when Taemin mentioned his family, but it was visible that he knew better than to ask about it at that moment. 

“Well. I’m there for you now,” Jongin’s voice was gentle as he spoke, his touch was gentle as he reached over to take his hand, his eyes were gentle as they looked over to Taemin. The noise from inside could still be heard, although it was muffled down to a minimum. In that very moment, on that bench outside the reception hall, with fairy lights - solar powered, of course - hung on the trees and on the walls to make everything look prettier, with the sound of far away traffic audible, it felt to Taemin like his worries had suddenly vanished. There was no Ten or increasingly complicated investigation anymore, there was no sorrow tugging at his stomach or stress building up about upcoming deadlines. There was just Jongin, him and Jongin, and how it all _made sense_ once again.

Taemin felt himself shiver and he didn’t know if it was from the cool northern Californian October air or from the way Jongin’s hand slowly shifted, fingertips dancing along the back of his own hand, up to his wrist and down the thin skin of his palm, before their fingers were linked. It made sense. It made sense, but Taemin still shivered, and the ghost of a frown played on his face when Jongin squeezed his hand. They were sitting close together, much closer than Taemin had realized. He was suddenly all too aware of the way Jongin’s longer, muscular thigh was pressing against his own, the way his own shoulder brushed against Jongin’s arm. The way he could _still_ smell it, Jongin’s cologne. Heady, with hints of cedarwood and some sort of flower Taemin couldn’t recognize. It was like a switch was flipped whenever he smelled it - he didn’t know what brand it was, but he’d found himself pulled back into the searing memory of everything that was Jongin upon smelling it on other men, on multiple occasions.

“What are you doing?” his voice was no louder than a murmur as his eyes trailed from their hands linked together up to Jongin’s face. The other was looking at him, head tilted down a bit to meet his gaze. He was so close, Taemin could make out the golden warmth of Jongin’s skin, the way a strand of his hair fell loose over his eyes. How he’d missed a tiny spot shaving, right on the left corner of his upper lip, and how full his lips looked, how _kissable_.

“You’re thinking too loud, Taem” Jongin said softly, and Taemin couldn’t miss the way he looked down to his lips then back up to his eyes. His hand reached out to fix that stubborn strand of hair on the top of Taemin’s head. Jongin had that look in his eyes again, that look he had back in the bar. Strong, confident. Unwavering, sure of himself, craving. 

Taemin shuddered when Jongin’s fingers ran through his wavy hair. He couldn’t miss it, the way he looked at him, and the way his fingers pressed just lightly on the back of his head, thumb grazing the shell of his ear and making Taemin close his eyes for a second. He couldn’t miss the soft whisper, Jongin’s muted _can I kiss you_ , and Taemin could do nothing but nod. He couldn’t miss the way his heart thudded in his chest and how _good_ it felt when Jongin caught his bottom lip in between his.

Jongin kissed just like Taemin remembered it - soft, yearning. Like he was holding on to everything that was Taemin and needed nothing else, like he was the first blooming flower in the spring and Taemin was the first snow in the winter, where one ended, the other began. The kiss they shared was like a snowdrop flower, it brought them together in a way that didn’t add up but was somehow the only possible outcome of this _whatever_ they had. He drank Jongin in, every soft sigh and every whimper as the kiss deepened, fingers drifting from the back of his neck to his waist, and Taemin wanted more, more, _more_ as he held onto Jongin’s arm, hand pressing on that spot right above his elbow.

The moment was not broken when Jongin pulled away just a hair, his breath still warm and ghosting over Taemin’s face and his eyes burning right into his own with what could only be described as _need_. 

The moment was not broken when Taemin whispered _do you want to get out of here_ , it was not broken when Taemin pulled out his phone for a second to text Baekhyun that something had come up and that he was done with his work for the evening and heading home, a mission that turned out to be near impossible when Jongin pulled him in as he typed, hand pressing warm and heavy on his waist and the other brushing his hair aside to place slow, languid kisses along the side of his neck, soft nibbles along his earlobe.

The moment was not broken when they walked to Jongin’s car. His is arm was around Taemin’s shoulder, and they giggled about how _silly_ this whole ordeal was, slipping away like teenagers in the middle of a work event.

The moment was not broken on the 20-minute ride from Oakland to Taemin’s studio apartment, Jongin’s hand lazily resting on Taemin’s thigh and giving a squeeze every once in a while that had him feeling too warm, too dressed, too dizzy, _too much_.

* * *

**Baekhyun - 9:42 pm**

_Alright, no worries, I think I’ve got something interesting there._

**Baekhyun - 9:56 pm**

_Taemin holy shit, come to the office as early as you can tomorrow_

**Baekhyun - 9:57 pm**

_I’ve got someone who’s ready to spill dirt on Morris. Secretary quitting from his office, she told me this story is much bigger than we thought._

* * *

“Your place looks nice. Cute,” Jongin said when Taemin locked the door to his apartment. It made him laugh a little. Whatever words could be used to describe his apartment, _nice_ was not particularly one of them. Sure, he had decorated it to his taste - a large bookshelf on one of the walls filled with his collection of books and vinyl records, a beaten-up but comfortable brown sofa with a handful of throw pillows, all shades of burnt orange, dark yellow and forest green, and the rug he’d bought with Ten, which he’d insisted on keeping - it was white and fluffy with geometric designs on it, and had been way too expensive. The decorations he’d brought from his trips, and about a dozen plants of various sizes scattered all around the room - they were Taemin’s favourite part. He had a small table near the tiny open kitchen, facing the large balcony doors, and his bed was on the other side of the room, tucked away under another window and partially hidden by a rattan screen he’d found at a flea market. Maybe Taeyong was right to call Taemin’s apartment a _hipster-y shoebox_. 

“You mean it looks small,” Taemin chuckled softly, shrugging off his suit jacket and walking over to where Jongin was standing against the kitchen counter. He placed his hands on either side of him and looked up with a smile. Even like that, Jongin still towered over him by a few inches. 

“I mean it looks nice. It’s very _you_ ,” Jongin said softly, his hands coming to grip at Taemin’s hips to pull him closer, into another of these scorching kisses that left him feeling lightheaded. It was dim in the apartment, Taemin had only turned on the kitchen lights, yet he could still make out the look on Jongin’s face when they pulled away, a mixture of want and uncertainty.

“Taemin…”

“Jongin…” they laughed at that, and Jongin tugged Taemin’s shirt out from where it was tucked in his slacks at his side, coming to rest warmly on his hip, fingers pressing into the skin there.

“You go first,” he whispered fondly, leaning in to pepper kisses along the line of Taemin’s jaw.

“I… I want us to be on the same level about this. I don’t want a repeat of five years ago,” Taemin’s voice was soft as he spoke, a gentle moan leaving his lips at the way Jongin touched him, kissed him, surrounding him with everything that was inherently him.

“You don’t want a _Graduation Night 2: Electric Boogaloo_?” Jongin asked while kissing his neck and it made Taemin snort. He tapped the other’s shoulder playfully - of course Jongin would make him laugh in such an intense, emotionally and sensually charged moment.

“Weirdly enough, no,” he gripped on Jongin’s arm gently to signal him to stop what he was doing, and pulled away to look into his eyes. “Listen, Jongin… I want you, I really do…”

“But?”

“But I just got out of a relationship, and I’m busy at the moment, and I don’t have time or emotional space for anything other than casual right now, really,” Taemin breathed out quickly, leaning in so he could bury his face in Jongin’s chest. He wanted nothing more than to shed all the layers of Jongin’s clothes, reach deep inside that connection they both had and touch him, kiss him everywhere he could, his mind was swarming with all the things he wanted to do to him. But they were friends, they’d always been _friends_. He knew Jongin, he knew how emotionally invested he got in these situations, and the last thing he wanted was to hurt him in any way. He was too precious for that. 

Jongin was silent for a beat too long and Taemin’s heart dropped in his stomach in fear that he’d ruined everything, that for the second time in their lives they would have to drift apart, only weeks after finding each other’s path again. Taemin wasn’t sure he could bear that.

“Taem, that’s good,” Jongin was _laughing_. Taemin had been terrified to say what was on his mind, terrified to hurt him, and the _motherfucker was laughing_ , “that’s what I was gonna tell you too. We’re both busy, and we both have our own lives, and I don’t want to screw our friendship up,” his thumb was rubbing slow circles into the skin on Taemin’s lower back and he was mumbling into Taemin’s hair, “I’m not the emotionally fragile kid I was in college anymore, Taem. I can take it. I want this. I want _you_.”

“Fuck, you can’t just say that,” Taemin whispered. It took him only a second to pull Jongin closer by the hips and to tilt his head up, leaning up on his toes the slightest so he could kiss him again. 

Jongin was laughing as they kissed, a soft, inconspicuous little sound that triggered an almost automatic response in Taemin’s brain. They stood there, in Taemin’s tiny kitchen, in his tiny apartment, filled with trinkets and the mess he’d left behind on his way out in the afternoon, making out heatedly, hands pressing in hair, teeth tugging on skin and bodies buzzing with the knowledge that _this was happening again_. 

* * *

Jongin was a _sight to see_ , Taemin thought as he stood in front of him. Laid out on his bed like that, that wonderful woody scent of his cologne permeating his bedsheets and pillows, his expensive shirt long forgotten and his slacks open and low on his hips.

“Shit, when did you get those?” Taemin whispered, moving to straddle him, fingers ghosting along the soft lines of faint abs, both hands coming up to touch - maybe a bit too greedily - the strong expanse of his torso. He heard Jongin laugh, huffing when he sat up to wrap an arm around Taemin’s waist, the other hand laying on his bare thigh, “it’s not fair, why do you look like that?” 

“You look gorgeous, Taemin,” Jongin sucked on a patch of skin at the hollow of his neck, making him tilt his head back and moan softly, hair falling in a light blonde halo around his head. 

“I have a baby belly,” Taemin chuckled a bit, hand coming to stroke Jongin’s arm and it looked _so_ good, the contrast between his light skin tone and Jongin’s darker warm color.

“I like it,” Jongin whispered. He leaned back when Jongin pressed his hand on his torso slightly, hovering over him and _damn_ , he was so tall, so _there_. His breath caught in his throat and a hand came to tangle in Jongin’s hair when lips wrapped around his nipple, sucking teasingly. Jongin pressed kisses lower, on the soft skin of his stomach, it made Taemin smile when he heard the soft words of praise the other whispered. _So pretty, Taemin._

“What’s that?” Taemin opened his eyes and leaned on his elbows. Jongin’s fingers had brushed aside the fabric of his shirt and were gently tracing along the lines of the tattoo trailing from the side of his hip to his upper thigh, disappearing beneath the fabric of his underwear. Flowers and vines, dark ink against pale skin. “It looks beautiful,” Jongin whispered. He smiled, that smile of his that toed the line between adoring and cocky in a way Taemin didn’t quite understand, but didn’t need to. His head tilted back again, elbows digging into the mattress when Jongin leaned in to kiss and lick along the ink, and his hand buried in the other’s hair again. Soft, warm. Essentially Jongin. 

“Come here,” Taemin whispered. He captured the other’s lips with his own when they met and switched their positions so he could straddle his hips again. His torso pressed against Jongin’s, skin against skin and his shirt shrugged off his shoulders. Taemin could feel him everywhere, could feel his tongue in his mouth and his hands cupping his ass, but it wasn’t close enough, it was nowhere near enough. His hips rolled down, once, twice, and the sounds that pulled from Jongin’s lips were the only sound Taemin wanted to hear until he died. 

“More, more, Taemin--” he breathed out, a pink flush evident on his high cheekbones and his previously neatly styled hair wonderfully messy. _I’ve got you_ , Taemin whispered, giving one last roll of his hips before he kissed down, down, _down_. He loved everything about this. Even with the lights so dim, he could see the slight goosebumps that were left behind each touch of his lips on Jongin’s torso, the way his nipples hardened instantly after he gave them a teasing lick, the way the muscles on his stomach tightened with each teasing swipe of his tongue between the ridges of his abs. The way Jongin moaned, deep and coated in honey, when he grabbed between his thighs and pressed just a little, feeling how hard he was considering how little they’d done.

“Can I?” Taemin breathed out, and Jongin nodded shakily, _yes please_. He made a quick work of the other’s slacks and boxers, sliding them down his long legs and carefully placing them next to the bed - Jongin did say that this was an expensive rented suit. It took Taemin a few seconds, kneeling between Jongin’s legs, to take in the sight before him.

Jongin was _beautiful_ , his cheeks flushed and his hair tousled, sweat just lightly covering some parts of his skin, his long legs spread and folded at the knees. Beautiful. The way he looked at him, eyes hooded and hazy, fixated into Taemin’s own. Beautiful. Jongin was gravity, pulling Taemin in further and further, undoing each of his restraints and tugging him along in his fall. Unable to resist, unable to escape, he was irreversibly attracted to everything that was Jongin.

When he took Jongin’s cock in his mouth - he was _so hard_ , it turned Taemin on in all kinds of ways - the other gave one of those deep moans Taemin wanted to pull out of him again and again, wanted to imprint on his brain and replay forever.

Jongin’s fingers found his hair, guiding Taemin along to let him know that the slow, steady rythm he’d built up, was good, _fuck, so good Taemin_. He tugged just slightly harder whenever Taemin would hollow his cheeks or give a swipe of his tongue at the head, pull away to kiss along Jongin’s inner thighs before swallowing him down again. His hand caressed along the skin of Jongin’s thigh and side, Jongin grabbed it and tangled their fingers. It wasn’t supposed to happen, it felt too intimate for their arrangement, it was _too much_ but Taemin loved every bit of it, loved the slight furrowing in Jongin’s brows and the way his legs spread open further.

“Taemin, Taem I’m--”

“It’s fine, Jongin. Come in my mouth,” Taemin murmured, lips ghosting over the crease between Jongin’s hip and his thigh. He wrapped his lips around his dick again and that apparently did it for Jongin. His body tensed and his fingers tugged onto Taemin’s blonde hair. His orgasm resonated in the quiet apartment when Taemin swallowed around him, Jongin’s hand squeezing Taemin’s impossibly tight. Taemin wanted to take a snapshot and keep it forever, the look of satisfaction on Jongin’s face when he pulled off and trailed kisses back up to Jongin’s jaw, hearing his erratic breathing, feeling the way his heartbeat went from pounding to soft and steady. Taemin’s hand trailed along his skin, tracing the soft features of his face, the sharp line of his jaw, the plump flesh of his lips and smoothing over his brows. _Jongin was beautiful_ , Taemin thought for the thirty-fifth time that night.

“You okay?” he breathed, shivering at the way Jongin’s hands ran up his sides, over his stomach and around to his lower back.

“I’m okay,” Jongin smiled, pulling Taemin in for another kiss, despite his protests in the form of _Jongin, I just swallowed your cum, do you really--_ “Taemin,” he said between capturing his lips in warm kisses - Jongin kisses - one of his hands travelling between Taemin’s thighs and gently squeezing his cock over his boxers, making Taemin moan out breathily, “what do you want, Taemin? Tell me what you want me to do to you,” his voice was hoarse and hushed, the words he said making Taemin groan slightly in the crook of his neck.

“Want you inside-- Your fingers, need you to--” Taemin felt dizzy with desire, dizzy from the way his skin pressed against Jongin’s own sweaty one, the other warm against him in the otherwise cold apartment. 

* * *

He could hear traffic outside his window but he wasn’t aware of the rest of the universe. The universe was laying on his side in his bed, naked and satisfied, two of his fingers pressing inside him _so good_ , crooking just right, sending sharp, dizzying jolts of pleasure from the top of his head to the tip of his toes. The universe was tanned, big and strong, his kisses along Taemin’s shoulder impossibly gentle. Taemin’s face was buried in his pillow to keep his noises down and he wanted to cry from how _wonderful_ everything felt. 

“You like that, baby?” Jongin whispered, and Taemin normally hated it when people called him baby, but when Jongin did it was just right, making his toes curl as Jongin’s fingers fucked into him just the way he liked, turning his brain to mush and his thoughts incoherent.

“Just--- Right there, fuck me right there Jongin,” he whispered, one of his hands shooting out to wrap around Jongin as he laid next to him, nails digging into the muscles on his back, something, anything to ground him, to keep him from slipping in further and further and forgetting his own name. His eyes were closed, but he could feel Jongin’s hot gaze on him and it was too much for him to handle, too much to wrap his head around as his hips kept rolling, knees digging into the mattress. Taemin never really came untouched, but somehow Jongin knew how to press his buttons, how to wind him up just right. He was breathing quickly, his hair a mess of blonde on his head when he reached out to tug Jongin closer, to lay on top of him and feel his body against him, the unrelenting, quicker pace of his fingers inside of him making him moan a bit louder, his lips pressed against Jongin’s in the ghost of a kiss, hanging open as Jongin whispered sweet nothings against him. When he came, it was with Jongin’s name on his lips and his arm around him. 

* * *

“Stay the night?” Taemin had mumbled around his cigarette as they sat in bed, huddled together to handle the cold coming in from the open window, "please."

“M’not going anywhere,” Jongin had whispered back, his arm wrapped around Taemin and his face buried at the top of his head, breathing in the citrus notes of his shampoo.

_It made sense again._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> what did you think? comments are always much appreciated ♥  
> until next time!


	4. a bit of work

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> title from work - charlotte day wilson
> 
> also, drugs are mentioned in this chapter but it's just weed, and it's legal in california, ya boys are not going to jail just yet

“Can you take it from the top?”

“My name is Irene Bae, and I was Senator Morris’ personal secretary up until yesterday.”

“Why did you leave?” the voice recorder was rolling, but Taemin insisted on scribbling notes in his notepad nonetheless. He didn’t like voice recorders, they were useful, but something about listening to the same conversation over and over again in order to gather information irritated him.

“I left because after five years of working there, Senator Morris started having increasingly inappropriate behaviour with me. One night, it went one step too far and… I snapped. The night before the gala, where I met Mr. Byun. I went into work that day and to the gala to collect my paycheck, and I handed in my resignation letter this morning,” she seemed young, Taemin thought. His age, maybe a few years older, but no more than thirty. 

“Please, call me Baekhyun, this is Taemin,” the editor said, setting three cups of coffee down on the table before them. Taemin felt eternally grateful for that - Baekhyun had seen right through him when he’d stepped in the editing suite that morning - _long night?_ he’d said with a teasing tone, to which Taemin only grunted, plopping down in front of his desk. It was a bottomless coffee kind of day, he could tell already. 

They’d cleared Shadow’s office out for the meeting - it made sense, considering the sensitivity of the information she was about to reveal, that she would feel more comfortable talking to Taemin and Baekhyun only, “can we call you Irene?” 

“Of course, yes,” _Baekhyun was good_ , Taemin thought. Establishing proximity and relatability with informants and contacts was the key to investigative journalism. Especially on a piece that was bound to be as important and emotional as this one, they needed Irene to feel comfortable with them. 

“So, to my understanding, you decided to terminate your contract with Senator Morris following instances of sexual misconduct..?” Taemin asked carefully - Irene seemed shaken still, but determined to speak, he could see it in her eyes.

“Yes. I managed to leave the building before… anything happened, but it is the reason.”

“Are you thinking of pressing charges against him? To my knowledge, most secretaries for public officials have to sign non-disclosure agreements… Do you still feel comfortable telling us what you know, in light of that?” Baekhyun’s voice was gentle as he spoke, leaning back in his chair and sipping on his coffee.

“Yes. He went too far, and that gives me a legitimate claim to break the NDA, my lawyer says, and I know I can get at least three former employees to join in my claim as well, I’m not the only one,” Irene was fiddling with the bracelet on her wrist, her eyes flickering between the two journalists sitting around the table with her. Baekhyun nodded in response, twirling a pen between his fingers.

“Alright. Please start, then. Tell us what you know.”

“I first became aware of Morris’ dealings when he hired me. It took me a few months to realize it, but when I went over his finances and records, I could see that something didn’t add up. There was too much money going _out_ and not enough money going _in_ , and multiple tax manipulations that I still don’t quite understand to make it look like it stood perfectly within the bounds of law,” she handed over a pile of papers to Taemin. He fiddled through them, eyebrows frowning in confusion - that was suspicious indeed. A lot of lines in there didn’t make sense, and Taemin wondered how this even flew under the radar for so long - as far as he could tell, the records dated back to 2002, when he was first elected.

“When I innocently pointed it out to him, he showed me what it really was,” Irene continued, “the truth is, he’s been knee deep in embezzlement ever since he was elected. The money going out, he’s justifying it as various investments or businesses - it was an ice cream shop, then it was a convenience store, now it’s a tech company---”

“A tech company? NCT?” Taemin’s face shot up immediately when he heard the name, and he slapped the table enthusiastically when Irene nodded, “this is it! _That’s_ where they come from! They’re a cover-up for embezzlement, is that it?”

“It’s not all of it, I’ll get to it later,” Irene said, and Taemin could feel his pulse racing and the excitement bubbling in his stomach, the way it always did when the confusing knots of an investigation started to slowly untie and form a coherent sequence, “so, he creates these companies using public funds and hides it in a very smart way in the lines of his public records, and then the money from these small businesses is laundered and taken to off-shore accounts in the Caimans.”

“So, embezzlement _and_ tax evasion? Shit,” Baekhyun breathed out, his pen tapping against the table, “it’s a mess and a half, isn’t it?”

* * *

Taemin sighed as he sat at his desk, Baekhyun sitting on top of it. He was bouncing a ball off the floor, Taemin knew that was his way of getting his brain going and thinking straight. But the noise. The repetitive _puff_ , _puff_ , _puff_ on the carpetting of their editing suite, it was slowly driving him insane. The lack of sleep didn’t help either.

“I swear to god, Baek, I will throw this ball out the window and you with it,” he rubbed his eyes, leaned over the dozens of pages of notes he’d taken during the meeting with Irene.

“Chill, Taemin,” Baekhyun scoffed, placing the ball back on the desk and getting up to pace around, “so. What do we know?”

“Seriously? We’ve been doing this for the past hour, Baekhyun, do we need to go over it again?”

“Taemin, you know how much material there is, we need to wrap our heads around it,” their meeting with Irene had lasted over two hours, and it had revealed way too much information, way too much _sensible_ information for them to gather it all in one sitting, “this is an important subject, we can’t afford to move forward and not know exactly what we’re dealing with here.”

Taemin groaned, running his hands through his hair and shaking out the negativity. Baekhyun was right, they needed to be on top of this.

“So. Morris is a pig who harrasses his employees. He’s been embezzling ever since he got in office and uses off-shore accounts to cover it up, as well as screen businesses to hide it and launder the money. With that alone, we’ve got enough to pull out one hell of an investigation on him,” he looked over to Baekhyun, who nodded, lips pursed in thought, “but we don’t have enough information on NCT to prove that it’s actually a cover-up for money laundering, we need financial records, we need a way to break into their bank accounts and we need evidence for the off-shore accounts.”

“Right, and how do we get those?” Baekhyun knew, of course he knew, but that was part of the way he’d been training Taemin for a year and a half.

“We get those by finding an insider who would want to leak it to us. My best bet is the receptionist at NCT, Wendy her name was? She was stern but young, we can break into that information by breaking her in. We need to meet with Wong and Suh, too, I can’t lead an investigation without hearing from them,” Taemin quickly wrote away in his notebook, nodding at his own words.

“But why are we basically screwed for this investigation? The reason Morris has been getting away with it for years? Why has Morris been getting away with this kind of thing and getting re-elected time and time again?” Baekhyun ran his hands over his face, reaching over for his cup of coffee - at this point, the both of them were basically 80% caffeine.

“Because he’s buying out votes in some areas, and he’s buying the silence of most newspapers in California,” Taemin sighed in defeat. It was what Irene had revealed, along with documented evidence of fund transfers from Morris’ personal accounts to all of the main media outlets in California, the _Tribune_ included. If their editor-in-chief, Boah Kwon, had never brought this story up for them, there was a _reason._ Leading any story regarding Morris was off-the-table, and if she ever found out they were investigating him, they’d either have to drop the case, or Boah would politely show them to the door and they’d both be jobless.

“Yeah. We’re screwed,” Baekhyun repeated, dragging over a chair to sit on it with an elongated, tired sigh, “we can’t drop this story, Taemin. It’s too important. There’s the harassment, the embezzling, the money laundering, the tax evasion, not to even mention the hacking of environmental organizations, which Irene said she has no proof of, so we have to dig further. It’s a clusterfuck, but it’s an _important_ clusterfuck, this is why we’re doing this job, Taemin. A bastard like Morris can’t sit in office another term, it fucks with all of the democratic principles I know you care about,” Taemin nodded slowly. Baekhyun was right, they could _not,_ ethically speaking, let him get away with this. It was their jobs as journalists, to control public officials and lead them to accountability.

“We’ll get fired if we even try to print that story, Baek, and we don’t have enough evidence on NCT or on the off-shore accounts to pull out a good, thorough investigation right now. I like my job, Baekhyun, but I also like having money to feed myself and pay my bills,” Taemin reckoned with a scoff. There was too much riding on this story, too much uncertainty that could tear down everything he’d worked so hard to build.

Baekhyun was quiet for the next few minutes, and Taemin could see that he was trying to figure out every possible outcome of the situation. He knew he was right, he also knew there was no way either him or Baekhyun would live with themselves if they dropped the story. His concentration was broken when he heard a few _pings_ from his phone.

**Jongin - 1:32 pm**

[image attached]

_look at how happy this lil nugget is!! monggu is so happy to see the kids eheh i’m babysitting today_

**Jongin - 1:34 pm**

_netflix and chill friday? i miss you already_

**Taemin - 1:35 pm**

_who ever thought it was a good idea for u to take care of puppies AND babies for a whole afternoon, is ur house not on fire yet_

**Taemin - 1:35 pm**

_classy way to put it. also u literally left my place 5 hrs ago. but yes._

**Jongin - 1:36 pm**

_fuck you i’m so responsible, i even cooked them lunch!_

**Jongin - 1:37 pm**

_are you blaming me for getting addicted to you?_

**Jongin - 1:37 pm**

_i can’t stop thinking about you_

**Jongin - 1:38 pm**

_my place? they just put friends on netflix i’m overdue for a marathon_

“Taemin? Can you stop texting Mr. Tall and Handsome Greenpeace dude from last night?” Taemin widened his eyes, _how the fuck did Baekhyun know--_ “I’m not dumb, Taem. I saw you leaving with him. He’s cute,” Baekhyun grinned a little, looking proud and smug at the fact that he’d figured it out, “but he’s not as awesome as us taking down Morris.”

“Yes, yes, sorry. You were saying?” Taemin scoffed a little at Baekhyun’s teasing, ignoring the blood rushing to his face upon being put on the spot like that.

“I’m saying, I found a way to go around this,” Baekhyun said with a smug triumphant smile on his face, causing Taemin to quirk one of his eyebrows in response, “we just need to send the story to print in another paper. We go national. _The New York Times, the Washington Post_ , I don’t care, just a paper that Morris has no influence over. We need to meet with them, give them the evidence, and tell them to publish it anonymously so Boah can’t trace it back to us. We publish the story in parts, so that we can break Morris’ reputation little by little. We start out by publishing testimonies regarding the allegations of sexual harassment. It gives us time to look further into the embezzling and into what the fuck NCT is, and it’ll distract Morris’ team enough for them to be less careful about the rest of their dealings, and that’s our chance at finding _something_.”

It was… not stupid. Not stupid at all. Taemin wasn’t sure that selling stories out to other papers was part of their contracts, but then again, he wasn’t sure that either him or Baekhyun had signed up for being silenced by their editor-in-chief.

“Do you feel comfortable with that, though? Going around Boah’s back?” Boah was firm and serious, and she hardly ever gave Shadow any funds, but Taemin knew that she was fond of Baekhyun, and that they had been friends for a while.

“Not at all. But do we have a choice?”

They really didn’t have a choice.

* * *

It was a tricky situation. On the one hand, Baekhyun and him could risk publishing their first story in the _Tribune_ overseeing Boah’s editorial line, but that might cause the both of them to lose their job. On the other hand, they could contact other newspapers - preferably out of California - and send out their article to be published under an anonymous name, but Boah could still get suspicious and fire them indirectly if she gathered enough evidence that they were the ones behind this investigation. Maybe it could be worth publishing it independently online---

“Are you into this?” Jongin sported a look of confusion on his face. Taemin pulled himself together and took in the sight of the other - broad, tall, tan and deliciously sweaty - fitting perfectly between his legs, placing kisses along his inner thighs. Taemin gave a soft hum, his hand running into Jongin’s hair and pushing it away from his forehead.

“Sorry, I was in my thoughts,” he apologized gently, tugging Jongin up to capture his lips in a kiss, a smile dancing on his own at the moan he drank in when reaching down to stroke the other’s cock. 

“ _Fuck_ \-- you okay?” Jongin’s voice came out as a hushed whisper, evidence visible on his face that he was trying to hold it together, tugged between pleasure from Taemin’s touch and concern, his hand squeezing Taemin’s thigh as a way to ground himself.

“Don’t worry about it,” Taemin breathed out, leaning in to kiss Jongin again, his hand picking the pace. He loved this, feeling Jongin fall apart from his touch, _because of his touch_. The rush of pride that came with knowing he was the one who put this look on Jongin’s face, he was the one to bring out those sinful little sounds from him. Taemin loved it.

Jongin’s place was nice, warmer and bigger than his own apartment, he even had _two_ _bedrooms_ , which was a luxury in this area, but had to live with a roommate to afford the rent - Greenpeace’s starting salary for attorneys was not the most competitive - and they had to be quiet. He watched in concentration as Jongin’s eyes fluttered close and he sighed longly, hips smoothly rolling into Taemin’s touch. Even like this, at almost midnight, tired from a day of work and the beginning of a _Friends_ marathon, Jongin was gorgeous. His features silky as he tilted his head back and let Taemin touch him like that, a soft furrow on his brows and a purse of his lips when Taemin’s thumb swiped over the head of his cock. 

“Taemin, can I… Please--” Jongin’s voice was a mere whisper, barely audible over the episode that was still playing on his laptop at the foot of the bed - maybe they had gotten carried away a bit - and Taemin shivered at the sound. It was so deep, he couldn’t quite understand how Jongin managed to turn him on with everything he did, every move, look or whisper igniting a flame in his stomach he didn’t quite know how to manage.

“What do you want?” Taemin asked, peppering kisses along Jongin’s jawline as his hand moved quicker. He made the other hiss, catching Taemin’s forearm to get him to stop - _stop before it got too much._

“I want to fuck you,” Jongin mumbled, leaning down so he could lick along the line of Taemin’s neck, his thumb gently caressing over the crook of his shoulder, “want to feel you that way…” Taemin shivered deeply, the sensation was almost maddening and Jongin hadn’t even really done anything yet - the five minutes he spent going down on Taemin not counting, he was way too preoccupied with his impending unemployment to _focus._ The words made him breathe out, a flush rising to his cheeks and the muscles in his stomach tightening in response - the way Jongin talked in bed got him all kinds of _bothered_. 

“Shit, that’s-- yes, please. Do you have a condom?” when Jongin nodded towards the bedside table, Taemin rummaged for a few seconds before pulling one out of the drawer. 

“Do you need me to prep you?” Jongin’s hot, searing kisses along his collarbone were making Taemin shiver, his eyelids falling closed and one of his hands gripping onto the other’s side. He didn’t know why Jongin had that effect on him, it was like he knew exactly where to touch, where to kiss, where to reach to have Taemin fall apart, into his warm embrace, drowning in the sound of his voice and breathing in the smell of his perfume. 

“I’m okay, you warmed me up enough,” he whispered, pulling on the back of Jongin’s neck to drag him into another feverish kiss. Jongin’s lips against his own and tongue brushing against his felt like a rush of oxygen after holding in your breath for too long. They felt like the first rays of sunshine after a long winter, like the feeling of dipping your toes in the ocean for the first time. Warm. Comfortable. Inherently right. 

Taemin blindly fumbled around to find the lube that was lying next to them on the bed and the condom he’d fished out from Jongin’s dresser just a moment ago, not pulling away from the slow kiss they shared. Shivers ran up and down his spine at the way Jongin moaned when he busied himself with rolling the condom down onto him and coating his cock in lube, legs spreading on instinct when Jongin rolled his hips and pulled Taemin closer by the waist.

It was almost automatic, when Jongin pushed in, the way his body seemed to immediately accommodate, giving way only to the warm kind of pleasure that was artfully, essentially Jongin. Taemin’s back arched and his eyes slowly fell closed, hands gripping onto the pillows next to his head. The sound he let out was a soft mixture of sigh and moan, no matter how much he tried to contain it for the sake of Jongin’s roommate, the sensations were too much to hold in. Taemin had been scared, truthfully, to open himself up to that kind of experience after Ten, the scorching memories of him still imprinted on his memory, body and mind tuned to Ten as a whole. 

But _this_ , this was what he needed. Jongin was who he needed. It was coherent, it made sense in the way everything they did together made sense. Despite the fact that he hadn’t done this in a while, there was no pain, only the searing sensation of Jongin, everywhere and every ways, from the way he gripped his thigh to the way he breathed on his skin, the way the beating of their hearts seemed to almost synchronize, stars aligning and a breach of time opening, creating a specific snapshot, a small twinkle of memory for the two of them to cherish.

“You feel so good like that,” Taemin whispered when Jongin was buried all the way inside, his hands resting on his hips and gently caressing the warm skin he found there. He could feel the slight trembling in Jongin’s limbs, hear the way he bit back a sound when Taemin shifted to wrap one of his legs around his waist, “feel so good inside,” he breathed out, eyes searching Jongin’s own clouded ones. Even in a moment such as this, Jongin still had _that_ look, that look that made Taemin lose all self control, that made him feel tiny and important at the same time, like he wasn’t just the only one in Jongin’s room, but the only one in Jongin’s life. That look was dangerous. 

Taemin’s thumb gently coaxed the other’s mouth open to capture his lips in a messy kiss, and his moan fell into Jongin’s lips when strong arms slipped under his hips to lift him up. Without breaking their contact, Jongin got on his knees on the bed with Taemin in his lap, and it made Taemin shiver and grip tightly onto his broad shoulder - this was almost too much, too deep, too intense. Almost.

“You’re lethal, Taemin Lee,” Jongin whispered with a chuckle, broad hands running along the expanse of Taemin’s back, before one settled on the tattoo on his hip and the pad of his thumb traced along the inked vines and flowers, “you’ll be the death of me someday,” Jongin breathed out. He rolled his hips, causing Taemin to grip onto him and moan out, looking up at the ceiling to try and contain himself. Jongin ran one of his hands up, a chuckle slipping past his lips when he gently gripped the half ponytail Taemin had tied his cheekbone-length blonde hair in. “That’s cute.”

Taemin scoffed a bit at that, building a steady, slow rhythm of rolling his hips on Jongin’s cock. A proud grin danced on his lips upon seeing the way Jongin closed his eyes and bit on his lower lip to try and bite back any noise, the way his hand tightened on Taemin’s hip and the way his hips moved along with the motion. “My hair was in my face, I couldn’t see you properly,” he said gently, one of his hands cupping Jongin’s jaw to pull him into another kiss again, enjoying the sounds he was dragging from the depth of Jongin’s throat with each of his movement, each roll of his hips and swipe of his tongue. It made him feel powerful, “that would be a crime, hm? Not seeing you.”

* * *

Taemin’s hand was gentle as it ran along Jongin’s torso, mapping out the contours of his muscles. He delighted in the way they twitched, a visible reaction to the effect he had on the other man. Very satisfying. His leg was resting over Jongin’s hips as he laid on his side, soft shivers running up and down his spine at the way Jongin was carefully dragging his fingertips on his back, arm wrapped around him protectively.

It had been a while since Taemin had felt like that. A deep, unbroken connexion with someone, a physical bond that seemed to transcend the realm of his and the other person’s body and link them on a deeper level, reach into the depth of his soul and pull him out, out of every worry and every problem in his life. 

He loved Ten, maybe he’d love him all his life. He was the first to show Taemin that sex wasn’t supposed to be purely physical, and wasn’t just about relieving stress for a moment as a way to cope with the existential dread that always seemed to weigh on his shoulders. Ten was soft, gentle when he needed to be and less so when the mood was right. But it had been a while. When Taemin thought back on it, there were signs that their relationship was fizzling ages before they broke up. It almost seemed that upon moving together, they’d fallen into a routine.

_Did you pick up my clothes from the drycleaning? Yes I did. How was work today? Good, I need to go back early tomorrow, they need me for an article. You work too much, Taemin. Yes, I know. Make love to me? I’m too tired, sorry honey. I love you. Goodnight._

_Lights out._

There were signs. Taemin was foolish not to have seen them. Maybe that was what it was, moving in together had been a test and they’d failed. He knew that, the conscious, reasonable part of his brain knew that all too well. The problem rested where the unconscious part of his brain only seemed to recall the beautiful beginnings, the hushed whispers between sheets and soft lips on soft skin.

Maybe he’d been too young, he was only 23 when they first got together. Maybe realizing that was the first step to moving on.

“Why did you seem out of it earlier, Taemin? Was it not good for you?” his deep whisper resonated in the room, all dark and lit up only by the pale blue glow from the screen of Jongin’s laptop, lying abandoned on the floor. Netflix had stopped automatically queuing the next episode, the only sounds in the room being their now quiet breathing and the rush of traffic down the street. 

“It’s nothing,” Taemin said in a soft voice, pressing a soft kiss on Jongin’s chest before sighing a bit, leaning back against him.

“Is it about Ten?” his voice was careful, he knew it was dangerous territory to venture into. Taemin sighed and refused to turn around, even though he felt Jongin’s warm eyes on him.

“Yeah.”

“Good or bad stuff?”

“I don’t know,” Taemin breathed out, “it’s just… you’re the first person I’m sleeping with since him. Just gets me thinking.”

“Do you want to talk about it?” Jongin’s fingers ran through the hair at the nape of his neck, before reaching up to fiddle with the messy half-ponytail on Taemin’s head.

“Just hold me,” he hummed as the other placed a kiss on the top of his head, a soft smile on his lips, “it’s nothing to do with you, it’s just… Emotions to deal with, and we both know emotions are not my strong suit. And work stuff bugging me.”

“Tell me about it,” Jongin scoffed sarcastically, playing with the now messy half-ponytail at the top of Taemin’s head, “it was hell at work today. I was running around left and right trying to put out fires, and that’s not even supposed to be my job.” Taemin was grateful for that, that Jongin could read between the lines and switch the subject.

“What happened, mr. big hotshot attorney?” Taemin playfully pinched Jongin’s nipple, earning him a hiss from the other and a mischievous slap on his ass.

“Behave, I’m worn out,” Jongin laughed quietly, his eyes staring at the ceiling before he ran a hand through his face with a sigh, “just security stuff. We’re trying to find a way to sue Morris’ administration for breaking the 2006 Californian Global Warming Solutions Act. Basically California is legally bound to reduce carbon emissions and every single of his decisions on energy and oil have been going against that act. So there’s that,” alarms went off in Taemin’s head. 

_Jongin was working on Morris as well?_ It somehow had never occurred to him that Jongin must have been part of the organizations that were supposedly hacked, it had never occurred to him to ask anything about it. Never occurred to him that he could get direct information from Jongin. His mind was reeling as he tried to process the impact of such a realization - if he directly asked Jongin for an interview regarding what he knew, Jongin might simply refuse and stop talking about it. This treasure trove of information would be shut, and Taemin painfully needed it with the way things were going at _Shadow_ . He _could_ simply have Jongin talk and store that information away as a way to frame his investigation, a way to direct him where to go. If he didn’t directly quote Jongin in his article, it should be fine. Not entirely _ethical_ , maybe not entirely _legal_ , but fine. Right? His train of thoughts was cut off when Jongin spoke up again.

“Also we’ve been worried about hacks into our systems,” _holy shit_ , Taemin thought, “basically some people in IT saw faint evidence of our files being stolen, and we’ve been repeatedly losing lawsuits against companies for biodiversity and atmospheric violations,” Jongin was mumbling, his eyes closed and hand still gently caressing Taemin’s skin. There was no way he was legally allowed to talk about this, Taemin reckoned his brain had simply turned to mush from the mind-blowing ride he’d just given him, “so our only hypothesis is that our system has been hacked into and they’ve got our strategies for the trials, and work their own plea around it.”

“So you have evidence about it?” Taemin’s voice was a mere whisper, his hand had stopped its motion on Jongin’s torso as he carefully listened, _remember it all, Taemin_ , so he could write it down as soon as he could. 

“IT says we’ve had multiple connexions from the same IP address in Emeryville, and that they follow a suspicious pattern. They’re looking into it,” Jongin muttered absentmindedly, and Taemin’s breath almost caught in his throat. He hoped Jongin couldn’t decipher the way his heart was beating what felt like a thousand times quicker with how close they were pressed together - _shit, NCT’s office is in Emeryville_ , he thought, the realization having his mind swarmed with possible hypotheses and outcomes.

Taemin gulped, trying to keep his voice from cracking and showing any signs of his rising anxiety, “that’s odd,” he simply whispered without getting a response - Jongin was fast asleep already.

* * *

Guilt tugged at the pit of his stomach as he sat down in his kitchen and frantically scribbled away as much information as he could remember from his conversation with Jongin the previous night. He’d made his way home quickly after they’d gotten breakfast - Jongin’s pancakes definitely did not live up to Ten’s recipe - and went over the things Jongin had revealed again and again. 

Evidence of network attacks. Evidence of files being copied. Repeated lawsuits being lost from the opposing party apparently knowing their strategy - not only against Morris, but also against other companies and organizations. Current lawsuits being prepared against Morris for violations of climate change regulation. 

And NCT, the big fat question mark in the middle of Taemin’s investigation, how it seemed that they could be linked to all of this. It did not answer any of his pressing questions - where did NCT come from? Who were they, who did they target and were they employed by Morris specifically? Did they also work for other companies?

Why did his Berkeley hoodie still smell like Ten, even after he’d washed it and worn in non-stop for a few days to try and rub the scent off, rub any hints of Ten’s love, painfully gone and never to return? Why couldn’t he move on, even after a few months, even when he had Jongin giving him the physical warmth and comfort he needed in these cold and lonely nights? 

Would Jongin ever find out that he’d just given Taemin a huge lead on his case, and would he get upset and disappear from his life again?

* * *

“So what do they do?” Kibum asked with a confused frown on his face.

“They play together.”

“They’re not playing together Tyong, they're floating, I’m not even sure they have the conscience and cognitive abilities required to---” 

“Shut up Kibum. They’re playing,” Taemin mumbled, his chin resting on his hands as he sat in front of the aquarium, face almost pressed to the tank.

“Of course they are, look at them, they’re playing chase,” Taeyong pointed to the colourful fish swimming around in his carefully crafted tank - he’d invested way too much time, money and effort into building the perfect ecosystem for his pets, fish-watching parties were in order.

They were sitting around the table, Taeyong’s fish tank sitting in the middle of it. He looked exceptionally proud, Kibum looked exceptionally bored, and Taemin looked exceptionally absent. 

“This is the last time I’m getting high with you guys, you’re both boring as fuck. Anyway, why are you moping around, Taemin? What happened now?” it had become a regular occurence, ever since Ten broke up with Taemin a few months prior, that they would gather and Taemin would complain - or whine, according to Kibum - about the latest developments of the whole ordeal.

“You would know if you came to my dinner party last night,” the accusatory tone came from Taeyong, who looked at him with a frown, he was still visibly upset, “you know those pajama parties are only fun when it’s the three of us, when it’s just Taemin and I it’s basically me trying to entertain his cold, dead soul, and him spending the evening talking my ear off about a stupid text he has to craft for some guy.”

“Have you listened to nothing I said last night? It was a major text--”

“Hold on, backtrack. What guy?” Kibum looked interested now, his back straightening as he looked at his friends from above the fish tank - Taemin thought he looked way less ridiculous now that he could see him without the tank between them and his face wasn’t distorted and odd shades of blue from the water.

“You would know if you came to his dinner party last night,” Taemin mumbled, mirroring what Taeyong had said as he continued his visible sulking and staring at the fish - why would Taeyong ever choose fish for pets when he could have gotten a dog was beyond his realm of comprehension.

“Jongin’s the guy,” Taeyong said, making Taemin hum. The youngest took some fish supplements and dropped them in the water, giggling a bit at how the fish excitedly swam near the surface to catch the food.

“Wait, _what_? Jongin? _Jongin_ Jongin? Jongin Kim? Straight golden boy Jongin? That Jongin?”

“His name sounds weird when you say it that much,” Taeyong noted absentmindedly, adjusting the filter and checking that the neon lights were alright.

“Jongin’s not straight,” Taemin muttered, tapping on the glass, the ghost of a smile dancing on his lips when a bright yellow fish swam near his finger.

“Ay, one of us! One of us! One of us!” Kibum chanted, punching the air in victory, which made Taemin laugh and Taeyong pout a bit.

“I’m feeling left out now,” he reached over to tug Taemin’s hood over his eyes, 

“Don’t worry, we need you as our token straight friend,” Taemin said after fixing his dark blue hood, a playful look in his slightly redshot eyes - which only made Taeyong pout further.

“... But yeah, anyway, that Jongin. Taemin slept with him.”

“Taemin _what now?_ ”

“Twice,” Taeyong noted, causing Taemin to shake his head, blonde hair slightly peeking out from underneath the hood that was pulled over his head. He’d been wearing this damn Berkeley sweater so much that Ten’s scent was starting to fade, replaced with notes of coffee, sleepless nights, and faint hints of the weed they’d just shared, it was messing with his head.

“Three times, actually.”

“ _Three times?_ ” the exclamation came from Kibum, his eyes so wide that it was almost comical.

“Yeah, the first time was after we graduated. Remember the party Sehun threw after the ceremony? The one where Taeyong ended up with Yeri in the bathroom, Chanyeol caught them, she had a pregnancy scare and Taeyong showed up at my place to google ‘ _how to dad_ ’ at three in the morning when he found out because he was too broke to afford wifi?” Taemin yelped when he felt the other smacking him upside the head.

“We do _not_ talk about that! I clearly stated that the statute of limitations on this was ten years, at the very least!” Kibum and Taemin both cackled at the other’s reaction, which only made him whine further.

“Anyway, yeah. That night. You know how he basically vanished after we graduated and he never came to our reunions? Yeah, I think I’m part of the reason.”

“Shit,” Kibum breathed out, reaching over to grab a handful of cheetos from the half-eaten open bag next to the fish tank, “so you saw him again? How come?”

“You know that Tinder account you guys made me? I matched with him on there,” Taemin closely observed a flaming hot cheeto before popping it into his mouth.

“So you _did_ end up using it, good,” Kibum grinned victoriously, leaning back into his chair, “so. Jongin’s bi, you hooked up with him five years ago and you’re doing it again, apparently. What’s got your panties in a twist? He’s hot,” he reckoned with a shrug - life would be so damn _simple_ if he had Kibum’s no-nonsense mind, Taemin thought.

“He’s afraid he’ll end up hurting him, and also he’s using him to get private access to classified information about a story he’s following and he feels guilty about that,” Taeyong explained between two sips of orange juice, and Taemin groaned, his face buried in his arms.

“Oh shit. Yeah, that’s… Damn, Taemin. Mixing business and pleasure, huh?” he chuckled a bit, throwing a cheeto at Taemin’s sorry form, “is that even legal? Getting information without him knowing he’s giving you information?”

“No,” Taemin mumbled in his arms, bumping his head against the table a couple times, “but I did it anyway without thinking about it, and now I feel guilty, and when I tell him he will hate me for putting him in this position, or hate me because he’ll think that’s the only reason I’m sleeping with him, and then when word gets out that I got a source without their consent I’ll get fired and I’ll end up jobless and homeless, with nothing to eat and my epitaph will read _Taemin Lee who died as he lived: a coward_ ,” he whined, pushing his hood off to run both hands through his hair, clearly in over his head.

“Firstly, your epitaph will clearly read _Taemin Lee, drawing others into homosexuality since 1993_ \- it rhymes - and secondly, why don’t you just explain it to him? He could understand,” Kibum reasoned with a simple shrug of his shoulders, which made Taemin shake his head.

“I’m not drawing anyone into homosexuality,” Taemin scoffed at Kibum’s silly joke.

“Of course you are. It’s like that time you got me hooked onto mango flavored juul pods, except with Jongin it’s like… queer flavored juul pods,” Taeyong mused, looking at the ceiling with an air of wonder about what he just said. Kibum guffawed at his words.

“He was queer before knowing me, okay? Can we get back to my problem?” Taemin said with frustration, tugging on his hair slightly, “and I can’t just explain it to him, this is a confidential case. I’m telling you guys because I trust you with my life, but if he learns about it and spills the details to the wrong person at Greenpeace, it could fuck up our whole investigation and leave us with no story to speak of.”

“So, what you’re saying is, you’re fucked,” Taeyong reckoned wisely, prompting Taemin to scoff sarcastically.

“I’m fucked.”

“In more ways than one,” Kibum added with a silly wooing and a wiggle of his eyebrows, shrieking when Taemin threw a cheeto at him and _oh my god, shut up Kibum!_ resonated in Taeyong’s apartment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> phew, so that was a ride  
> taem's in a bit of a pickle isn't he?  
> special props to diamond for requesting silly stuff for me to put in there, it made the writing fun!  
> what are your impressions? is the investigation too confusing? im so unsure about it ahah 
> 
> comments make me happy ♥ 
> 
> [twitter](https://twitter.com/jnmpia) | [playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2XkJL7DcbQ5v0gzBMlyA6N)


	5. free the words from you mouth

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> title from change - one hope

**_SENATOR ANDREW MORRIS ACCUSED OF SEXUAL HARASSMENT_ **

Baekhyun was grinning proudly when he showed up to Taemin’s doorstep on a Tuesday morning, before Taemin even got the chance to shower or get coffee started. It was striking, the contrast between Taemin’s puffy face and messy hair, a look of confusion on his face, and the way Baekhyun seemed put together, elegant with his wool coat and beaming as he held the latest edition of the _Washington Post_.

“It’s 6:45 in the morning, Baekhyun,” Taemin mumbled, stepping aside to let his boss in. His apartment was a mess, but Taemin had seen their editing room in a worse state, it was fine.

“I went through six news stands before I could find it. Apparently they’ve already been snatched up by most people, can you believe it? We made front page!” Baekhyun was positively beaming as he sauntered inside Taemin’s apartment and directly headed towards the kitchen to get some coffee ready. Baekhyun always had that aura about him, like he could make himself comfortable anywhere. From the way he’d kicked off his shoes and coat, he definitely felt comfortable in Taemin’s apartment.

“Technically, _Anonymous writer_ made front page,” Taemin chuckled a little, brushing a hand through his hair to make it look halfway decent before he sat at the kitchen counter, grabbing the paper to look over it. It was a weird feeling, the way his heart jumped in excitement at seeing the story they’d worked so hard on, the first part of their series of revelations on Morris, so _real_ , printed right there on the front page of a paper that was notorious for its political reporting, “and they didn’t edit it at all? It’s all in there?” Taemin marvelled, quickly reading through the front page, and then the few pages in the middle of the paper where their article continued.

“No, it’s as they agreed. Our words, the way we wrote them, in their paper,” Baekhyun announced proudly. He set two cups of coffee down for the both of them and sat across from Taemin, “I’m so proud of us. We’re doing the right thing, here, Taemin.”

“We are,” Taemin agreed, blowing on the hot coffee before taking a sip - damn, Baekhyun made strong coffee, “have you heard from Boah at all..?” he asked hesitantly. He knew they were not supposed to have written this article or sent it to the _Post_ , he knew Morris had bribed every major paper in the Bay Area to stop them from reporting on him. He also knew Boah Kwon, their editor-in-chief, was a clever woman and it could be minutes until she figured out they were behind this.

“We hid our traces well, Taemin. We never mention who we are, or the _Tribune_ , we don’t even state that we’re from San Francisco. It’ll be fine, trust me,” Baekhyun’s voice was warm and comforting, his eyes glistening with excitement when he took the paper back from Taemin to read over it once again - even though he’d probably done so at least five times since buying it.

Somehow, Taemin couldn’t be convinced that it would be fine.

* * *

“I’m Taemin.”

“What?” Taemin frowned, tearing his eyes away from the silly TV show they were watching - something about business rivals becoming unlikely lovers, Seulgi always picked the exact things she knew would take their minds off of things. 

They didn’t see each other often, with the both of them being so busy. Taemin had known Seulgi since they were babies, their families used to attend the same church. Organically, they’d grown apart over the years. Life got in the way, work got in the way, Seulgi moved to Korea for a little while to take care of her grandmother. Eventually she came back, and even though things were not the same as when they were six and playing house together, not the same as when they were sixteen and getting over their first heartbreak together, not the same as when they were twenty-two, fresh out of college and figuring life out together, she stuck around. Taemin liked their relationship, he liked that they could still make time to hang out with each other, watch silly TV shows and get unnecessarily real with each other.

“I’m Taemin, and I’m emotionally constipated, and for some reason I can’t tell my good friend Seulgi even though she knows literally everything about me, even that one time I puked in her sink during a house party and never admitted---”

“You _know_ about that?” Taemin sat up straight on the couch, a look of horror on his face as he set his cup of tea aside, “that was _eight years ago_ , Seulgi, why are you only telling me that now? Do you know how nervous I’ve been that you’d find out? That your mom would find out? For _eight years_?” Seulgi laughed, stretching out her leg so she could rest it on Taemin’s lap. 

It was getting colder outside, with December rolling around, and they were both cozily snuggled on Taemin’s couch. It had been a few days since the article came out, and the shitstorm it blew up throughout the _Tribune_ headquarters was scary and overwhelming. Taemin needed Seulgi by his side at times like these.

“Of course I know, Taemin, I know you better than anyone. I also know that there’s something going on with you, and I don’t know if it’s related to Ten, or to your weird arrangement with Jongin, or to work, or to a mixture of both, but you need to get it out,” damn it. She was always the smarter one. Reaching over, Seulgi grabbed Taemin’s Berkeley hoodie that was lying on the floor and slipped it on - it looked comically large on her - and pulled the hood up, “I’m Taemin, and I’m your good friend, and I need you to scream at me. Be honest with me, pretend I’m you and you’re me.”

Taemin remained quiet for a while, his eyebrows frowned as he looked over her. This was ridiculous,

“This is ridiculous,” he breathed out, but he could see in her eyes that she wouldn’t budge. She was always like that, incredibly persuasive. After all, she was the one who pressured him into playing ding dong ditch when they were little, and she was _never_ the one who got caught either, it was always Taemin having to struggle his way through an explanation with the people who lived on their street. 

Seulgi didn’t say anything, simply kept chewing on a Twizzler while not tearing her eyes from him. _Fuck it._

“You need to stop whining,” Taemin started, his hands fumbling with the edge of his sweater - this was ridiculous, he thought for the third time - “you need to get a hold of yourself and stop whining about a relationship that was due to end soon anyway,” Taemin gulped when Seulgi nodded, the pretend furious look in her eyes contrasting with the way she was nodding in encouragement, “you need to stop lying to yourself and you need to either come clean to Jongin about what you’ve done with the information he gave you, or you need to delete any evidence of that information and get it the legal way. You need to stop bottling up your feelings, and you need to stop hooking up with random guys every week end when they give you no satisfaction, they don’t respect you, and you’ve got Jongin to do that with, who loves you and appreciates you, and who you might like a little too much for your own good. You need to clean your apartment, because it’s a mess, and you need to get your shit together and _for the love of god_ , you need to do something with your hair because it looks like dried straw, you look like a stupid anime character, and it reminds you of Ten whenever you look at yourself in the mirror,” he breathed out all at once, voice getting a little bit louder towards the end. His cheeks were red and he gulped when he was finished, looking towards Seulgi nervously. She only smiled, reaching over to ruffle his hair lightly.

“See, that wasn’t that bad now, was it? Feels good, getting it off your chest?” Taemin nodded a bit, chuckling when she pulled him into a tight hug. “I knew you loved Jongin,” she said with a grin and poked his side.

“Shut up,” Taemin mumbled and he reached over to grab a Twizzler, munching on it quietly.

“Didn’t hear any denial there,” she simply stated, and _god,_ he hated how smart she was sometimes.

* * *

**Jongin - 9:14 am**

_what are you doing today?_

**Taemin - 9:14 am**

_nothing why_

**Jongin - 9:16 am**

_i’m bored. and i haven’t seen you in ages._

Taemin sighed a little as he looked over at his phone, sitting at the kitchen table and sipping on his coffee. Sundays were off days, they were supposed to be Taemin’s day. Lately, they were also the days he needed to recover from a hangover, get back home or manage to politely kick out whichever random guy he’d brought over the previous night. Kibum said it was unhealthy to cope with his existential angst through sex with strangers, Taeyong and Seulgi both agreed, and Taemin knew it was ridiculous to do that when he could easily call up Jongin any time. Jongin was sweet and warm. But seeing Jongin also made him feel incredibly guilty, and it was not that he was trying to actively shut him out. He was just functioning better when Jongin was not around, for various reasons - one of them _definitely not_ being that his stomach had a funny little thing for twisting and giving him the butterflies whenever Jongin spoke, laughed, smiled, or looked at him _like that_. 

**Taemin - 9:20 am**

_im kinda tired_

**Jongin - 9:21 am**

_let’s just hang out? i miss you_

Damn it. 

**Jongin - 9:22 am**

_[image attached]_

_i promised monggu we’d go on a walk. come with?_

**Taemin - 9:24 am**

_u know the way to a mans heart_

**Jongin - 9:24 am**

_i’m trying._

Taemin was not freaking out - not at all. The fact that Jongin had implied he was trying to find the way to Taemin’s heart did _not_ make him freak out. No sir. He simply decided that the right thing to do was to put his phone on his coffee table and promptly ignore all the following _pings_ , and eventually his nerves would calm down and Jongin would maybe get the hint---

**Jongin - 9:32 am**

_so? you coming with us? i can come pick you up on the way, we’re going to dolores park._

**Jongin - 10:15 am**

_taemiiiiiiin!_

**Jongin - 10:23 am**

_we’re leaving the house now, i’ll swing by your place anyway, coooome with uuuuuuuuuus it’s a nice day._

It wasn’t a nice day. The sky was cloudy, it was windy, Taemin was still a bit hungover, his inner thighs still ached - the guy’s name was Ian, judging by the scribbled name, _thank you for last night ;)_ and phone number Taemin had found on his nightstand when waking up - and most of all, he was _not_ emotionally prepared to deal with Jongin.

He was not emotionally prepared, but he still felt his heart thud in his chest and a smile instantly tug at his lips when he opened his front door and Jongin was standing there, looking all cuddly under a jean jacket, a cozy hoodie and a knitted beanie, his brown poodle excitedly yapping upon seeing Taemin.

“Hi Monggu,” Taemin crouched down to pet his head, laughing when the dog jumped to lick around his face. Over the past few months they’d reconnected with each other, Taemin had only been to Jongin’s place a handful of times - him having a roommate didn’t exactly make things easier for them - but the dog, somehow, had taken a liking to him, “hey,” Taemin offered sheepishly when he got back up, smiling a bit at Jongin.

“He’s alive!” Jongin exclaimed with the brightest smile, and pain pinched Taemin’s heart when he wondered, for a split second, how Jongin managed to not hate him yet, “so, are you coming with us? It’s not raining, I miss you, we’re only a few minutes’ drive away from the park, Monggu has been excited all morning, I miss you, there’s coffee waiting for us in the cupholder in my car, and did I mention I miss you?” Jongin grinned, and it was almost comical how Monggu yapped as if on cue.

“Alright, fine. You’re insufferable, you know that? I missed your annoying ass, come on, let’s go,” Taemin said in a playfully angry tone. He slipped on his shoes and grabbed his keys, a smile creeping on his face when he saw how Jongin excitedly jumped and tugged on Monggu’s leash.

“You’re going to get us killed,” Taemin noted as he held tightly onto the handle and watched Jongin drive through the streets of San Francisco, narrowly avoiding a bike that rushed past them. Jongin laughed brightly, and the deep, warm sound shouldn’t have made Taemin smile like that, especially not when they were nearing death with every second that passed. But it did.

“Is it my fault that people in this city drive like absolut nutcases?” he glanced over to Taemin, who yelled out _eyes on the road, Jongin!_ , which only made the other laugh even more, “it’s a 10 minute drive, Taemin, I’m not going to get us killed.”

“If these are your last words ever, you’re going to look like an idiot,” Taemin remarked, and the both of them laughed at that. He looked back to see Monggu getting more excited each second that passed - he probably recognized the way to the park.

It was a quick walk to reach the park after Jongin had found a place to park his car - an old beat up Ford that ran on diesel, which Taemin pointed out with a _huh, do your colleagues know you drive a diesel_ , and Jongin only replied _I can’t be environmentally friendly all the time, give me money if you want me to go electric_. It had made Taemin laugh - he somehow forgot why he was even avoiding Jongin in the first place, when the other man seemed so good at making Taemin’s worries disappear with a snap of his fingers. 

His hands were stuffed deep in his pockets as they walked around the grass. It wasn’t the most forest-y place to take a walk, being mostly a big stretch of grass overlooking the city, but the view was pretty, and it was large enough that they could take Monggu off the leash and let him run around freely. Taemin gasped excitedly when he found a stick, threw it for Monggu to go fetch.

“He’s never going to leave you alone now, I hope you’re aware of that,” Jongin pointed out with a chuckle, as Monggu went back and forth between Taemin and the stick - it looked comically long compared to the rather small dog. 

“I don’t want him to leave me alone. Can you give me your dog? I like him, I want to take him home,” Taemin said simply, a playful twinkle in his eyes when Jongin nudged him with his elbow.

“He’s my baby, not yours!” Jongin exclaimed. It made Taemin laugh a bit as he kicked a small rock.

“I thought I was your baby?” he teased the other - it was amusing to watch the flush in Jongin’s cheeks, and he knew it was all friendly banter. Even though they were nothing official, and their relationship was just casual, they could joke around like that, Taemin felt thankful for that.

“Yeah, when it’s convenient for you,” Jongin scoffed. Even though it was meant to be playful, and Taemin knew it was only playful, he couldn’t help but notice the slight hint of seriousness in Jongin’s voice, and the slight blow that threw to his stomach.

“Come on, I said I was sorry about being MIA lately… It was just… A lot of work. I was busy,” Taemin stopped walking, tugging gently on Jongin’s arm when the other stopped as well. It took a few seconds of looking into Jongin’s eyes and pouting slightly for the other’s features to soften and his hand to extend, ruffling through Taemin’s hair.

“Yeah, you were busy,” Jongin reached over to poke a spot on Taemin’s neck. Furrowing his brows, Taemin looked puzzled, before an air of realization dawned on his face. Damn it. He had meant to cover that hickey up with a scarf, “what was his name?”

“Ian,” he offered sheepishly, following Jongin along as they started walking again. He didn’t let go of Jongin’s arm. Neither of them addressed it.

“Was he nice?” 

“I... don’t know.”

“You deserve nice,” there was a softness to Jongin’s voice, a softness in the way he glanced over at him when saying that.

“I know.”

“I’m nice.”

“I know you are,” without even thinking about it, Taemin tugged Jongin’s hand out of his pocket and gently linked their hands together. Neither of them addressed it, again. It was odd, the way things were with Jongin. They were friends, and both perfectly comfortable staying friends. There was simply this _thing_ whenever they saw each other. Things fell into place, and when their mutual friends weren’t around, they tended to act more like a couple than anything else. It was easy, and it worked. _You’re lying to yourself_ , Kibum would say. _This works_ , Taemin would argue.

“I know you’ve got this weird rule about Sunday being Taemin’s day or whatever,” Jongin said. Taemin chuckled softly - Jongin still remembered. The rule dated back from college, when he’d stopped going to church altogether and needed the day to himself to cope with the religious guilt that came with that. He didn’t have it - the guilt - anymore, he wasn’t even religious anymore. But Sundays were still Taemin’s day, “but I’m glad you came. I really missed hanging out with you.” Jongin’s voice was warm. Honest. The way it always was, and it made Taemin gently squeeze his hand. _I missed you too_ , Taemin could not manage to say. It was fine, he knew Jongin knew.

Jongin tightly grabbed Taemin by the waist a few moments later when he almost tripped over Monggu barrelling towards them with the stick in his mouth, and they both laughed at that. Jongin’s arm wrapped around Taemin’s shoulder instead, and neither of them addressed it. Once more. This could become a habit. 

They walked along the grass, and Taemin yelped when Jongin suddenly started running and yelled _last one to that tree loses!_ Taemin ran, and of course Jongin got there before he did, not even out of breath despite the fact that he’d just ran up a hill, whereas Taemin was panting, leaning against the trunk.

“We can’t all be gym rats like you, you know, some of us don’t have time to work out,” Taemin breathed out, slowly walking over to sit on a bench that stood by the tree.

“Yeah, more like some of us live on coffee, cigarettes and chinese takeout,” Jongin laughed as he sat down, earning himself a playful shove from Taemin. His arm naturally found its place back around Taemin’s shoulder, and Monggu caught up with them to sit next to the bench - he looked a little tired as well. This was strangely domestic, strangely _familiar_ , Taemin thought. The way they sat on the bench overlooking the city, Jongin holding him close, a dog at their feet. The way, even though he’d basically been ghosting Jongin for the past few weeks out of guilt, Jongin didn’t seem angry and welcomed him back with open arms. He didn’t ask questions, and he didn’t try to blame Taemin. Almost as if he understood.

“Why are you not angry?” Taemin asked after a while, his legs crossed. 

“What?” Jongin looked confused, turning his face towards Taemin, his hand absentmindedly playing with the dry ends of Taemin’s hair.

“Why are you not mad at me? I didn’t reply to any of your texts for two weeks, and you’re not angry? Why are you not angry? I’m a jerk, you should hate me, scream at me, _something_ ,” Taemin breathed out, his hand coming to rest on Jongin’s thigh. It was comfortable there. Natural. Jongin hummed in understanding.

“I’m worried about you,” _he didn’t deny being angry_ , Taemin thought, “you’ve been closing in on yourself, lately, Taemin. Even Kibum texted me to know what you were up to, why are you shutting everyone out? What are you scared of? What do you want out of life Taemin?” he didn’t know how they got there, but somehow they did. It was not particularly cold, but he felt cold anyways, holding onto the dog’s leash and watching him sniff around the grass.

“I don’t know."

“You know. I know you know,” Jongin always had a way to read him, as far back as Taemin could recall. His presence was always warm, and he always knew when something was up. It was unnerving, really.

“I want pancakes.”

“Pancakes?”

“His pancakes. The way he made them,” Jongin didn’t have to ask, “they were always slightly burnt on one side,” Taemin lit a cigarette and watched the blueish smoke rise up to the sky, blending in with the grey autumnal sky, “it was my fault, really, I’d keep stealing kisses when he made them, and then he’d forget about flipping them. I want to pour syrup on them, that special maple syrup he used to buy at the farmer’s market because it came specially from Vermont or something, it was fucking expensive. I want to watch the light stream into his apartment, into our apartment, watch the strip of sunshine fall specifically on that corner of the couch the remote control always gets buried in, and you know it’s buried in there, but you still spend hours looking for it. And watch the cat chase around that bee we could never get out of the apartment. That bee terrified me. He’d hold me when I’d see it, made me forget it was even there, and you know how much I hate insects. I want to wait for him in front of the office, hear him say _come on, let’s go home_. I want to go home.”

“You have a home,” Jongin offered, and his hand on Taemin’s shoulder felt slightly more than friendly. He didn’t want to think about that, about the implications that touch held.

“I have a place where I keep my stuff, it’s hardly a home.”

“What about your parents?”

“I haven’t talked to them in a year. It’s been a long time since family meant home to me,” Taemin tapped out the ashes at the end of his cigarette, looking up to Jongin before he looked away again. Why did he have to be so _nice_? 

“I’m sorry, what happened?”

“A good bout of emotional manipulation with a sprinkle of religion-induced homophobia will get you there, I guess,” Taemin scoffed sarcastically, taking a drag from his cigarette, “they know nothing about my life, they don’t even know I’m gay. My brother still talks to them, I get regular updates from him. They’re getting divorced, apparently.”

“Do you always feel like that? Like you’re not home?”

“No, not all the time. Most of the time I’m fine, I have great friends, I have a job I love,” Taemin flinched a bit at his own mention of work - that was risky territory to dive into with Jongin around, “but it creeps up on me when I’m alone. When I’m sitting there with my thoughts and I can’t push them away. I’m 26, I have a great job and an apartment, and I don’t have a family or a home. My friends are finding their way, settling in - did you know Minho and Kibum are getting married in the spring? - and where am I? I’m home alone on a Friday night, or waking up on a Sunday morning in some guy’s bed, and I can’t even remember his name,” it had been a bad habit, but it had been recurrent for the past few weeks. It was once, then twice, then Taemin couldn’t keep count. It was stupid, but the instant gratification that came with meeting someone in a bar, taking them home, and momentarily knowing he was desired made him feel better. It grounded him, it reminded him that he existed. They never said they were exclusive, Jongin and him. It was just sex. Taemin still couldn’t miss the slight frown on the other’s face, “it just feels… Like something’s missing. Cold. Everything feels cold, lately.” 

Taemin took a drag of his cigarette, elbows resting on his knees as he kept his gaze trained on the view of the city in front of him. He’d always loved Dolores Park. He learned how to ride a bike there. After mass, his parents, his brother and him would go for a picnic on the hill, on sunny days. He got his first kiss there, from Seulgi, before they both figured out they were gay. He celebrated the end of high school there, with her and Taeyong, and he’d gotten drunk for the first time there. He’d third-wheeled so many _not-dates_ between Kibum and Minho there, before they finally got the guts to confess to each other. He took Ten there, pulled out all the stops, preparing special food, bringing special wine from Italy and even bringing his guitar, the guitar his brother had given him and that he could barely play. It had made Ten laugh, as he watched Taemin struggle his way through _Anyone else but you_ by the Moldy Peaches. It was only two chords and he still managed to mess it up. Ten said it was the moment he realized he loved him. Taemin wondered when it was that he realized he didn’t love him anymore.

“You know I’m here whenever you feel cold, Taemin,” almost smiling, Jongin took his beanie off and gently placed it on Taemin’s head, fixing it so his hair would peek out just right, stroking a hand over the top of his head afterwards, “it doesn’t have to always feel that way.” Taemin smiled. He couldn’t ignore the beating of his heart, the way it got just slightly quicker when he looked into Jongin’s eyes, the way he felt warm, warm for the first time in a while, when Jongin tugged him into his shoulder. The way guilt settled low in his stomach and knotted his throat.

“I know.”

Jongin’s arm was warm around his waist.

* * *

Baekhyun was nervous, Taemin could see it. It was visible in the way his pencil twirled over and over again between his fingers, in the way his leg bounced repeatedly as they sat in Boah’s office. It was worrying - Baekhyun was _never_ nervous. He wasn’t nervous when they listened to Irene’s testimony, he wasn’t nervous when they gathered more people to speak out against Morris, he wasn’t nervous when they wrote the article late one night in his apartment - they couldn’t write this in their office, too dangerous - and he wasn’t nervous when they met with the _Washington Post_ editor and handed them the story. He wasn’t nervous when the story got out a week later, and he wasn’t nervous when rumors started flying around the office about who could be behind it.

But there, sitting in Boah Kwon’s office after she’d called the two of them specifically for a private meeting, Baekhyun was nervous. And that freaked Taemin out.

“You both know why I called you in here,” Boah said, walking over to sit down at her desk, facing the other two. She had always intimidated Taemin. Despite being rather young, she’d made her way through the press industry so quickly, catapulting at the top of her game, and had been promoted to editor-in-chief when their previous editor retired. She was assertive, confident, and never beat around the bush, which were the skills required to make a good editor. Taemin was glad he’d always been able to fly under the radar and never really get noticed by her, except for a few emails of praise for the _Shadow_ team when they pulled out a good article. This was different, though.

“We honestly do not, Boah. What’s going on?” Baekhyun’s tone was firm but friendly - he’d always been rather close to Boah, and Taemin thought it was smart to play that card. Even though it had pained Baekhyun to go behind her back and publish the story in a different paper, he knew just as well as Taemin, from Irene’s information and the official confidential paperwork she showed him, that she’d taken bribes from Morris to prevent any story getting out about him. At this point, it reached organized crime levels, and despite their friendship, Baekhyun’s journalistic ethics compelled him to write the story with Taemin anyway.

Boah scoffed, and reached in her drawer to pull out an edition of the _Washington Post_ , showing the bold title and Morris’ face on the cover.

“I’m talking about this, Baekhyun. Did you hear about it?” she was mainly looking and talking to Baekhyun, which Taemin felt thankful for, he didn’t know whether he could handle looking into her eyes right now. Boah was a scary person.

“Of course I did, it’s all over the news. Crazy, isn’t it? And his record was so clean, he’s been in office for what, like fifteen years?” _Smart_ , Taemin thought. Playing dumb, playing innocent. For someone so smart, Baekhyun was good at it.

“Morris was always off the table, Baekhyun. You knew that, I told you we don’t go for senators,” Boah hissed through her teeth - she told Baekhyun? That was new, Taemin didn’t know that. In any case, even if Baekhyun had been aware, his promises had been thrown out the window, evidently.

“I don’t know what you’re implying, Boah. Frankly, I’m a little shocked. Are you saying that you think we did it, or are you admitting that this publication is getting restrained in its freedom to investigate and print?” Baekhyun leaned back in his chair, a smug smile on his face at the way Boah seemed to flinch a bit. She adjusted her suit, and sipped on her styrofoam cup of coffee.

“I reached out to Morris’ team, and they said the person who contacted them for comment on this story had a _Washington Post_ email address. But when I called my friends at the _Post_ , they said they had no idea someone was working on that pitch,” Boah’s eyes flickered to Taemin, and he felt like digging a hole and crawling in the ground from how piercing her gaze was, “nothing can identify the person, but when I looked through our records, I saw that the last story we ran involving Morris was this one,” she pulled out the magazine edition from a few weeks back, with the story Taemin had written on Greenpeace’s gala, “you wrote it, Lee. Under your real name.”

“I did…” Taemin started, hands fumbling in his lap. He tried to show no signs of anxiety, Baekhyun had warned him that Boah was incredibly smart and could pick up on any hint, “it was just a piece about the Greenpeace gala, though. I just wrote down what Morris’ team said in their speech, I couldn’t even talk to them that evening,” Taemin said in a soft voice, rubbing the back of his neck and putting on a false expression of confusion on his face.

“Right. Baekhyun, you talked to them, though,” she turned her computer screen to show a folder with the photos Ten had taken, one of them showing Baekhyun talking to Morris’ team, “recognize her?” Boah pointed to one of the pictures. Irene was talking to Baekhyun on that one. _Shit_ , Taemin thought. They both shook their heads, feigning innocence, “that’s Irene Bae. She’s one of the people accusing Morris. You were talking to her, Baekhyun, and she happened to resign the next morning.” her tone was accusatory and confident, it made Taemin’s stomach churn.

“I do remember talking to her, but we didn’t say anything important. We mainly talked about how good the champagne was. Say it _was_ us on that case, say, hypothetically, that we were behind the story, do you really think I would try to get information from a secretary during a gala? You know I’m more subtle than that, Boah, come on,” Baekhyun argued, and it seemed to convince their editor-in-chief for a split second. Her features relaxed a bit, although she didn’t lose that suspicious twinkle in her eyes.

“... Fine. Get back to work. You convinced me this time, but I swear I’m onto you. Don’t forget where your real allegiances lie, Baek,” she said in an almost threatening way, and it took Taemin all the will in the world to not visibly gulp at these words.

“She’s fucking scary,” Taemin whispered once they had left her office and were making their way back to their own editing room. It prompted Baekhyun to laugh a little, cheeks red now that the anxiety was crashing down on them.

“She is. We’re going to have to be discreet about everything now, Taem. That means no discussing this in here, from now on, we’re strictly meeting at your place or mine. And we don’t tell the others,” he was whispering, almost as if he was scared Boah had planted mics in the hallway.

A simultaneous _ping_ came from their phones, and the two of them stopped walking. A confused frown was on Baekhyun’s face when he opened his email account, a soft _fuck…_ left his lips as he read over his screen. Taemin had received what looked like the same email on his professional email address - [ francesco.min@sftribune.com ](mailto:francesco.min@sftribune.com) , not [ taeminlee@sftribune.com ](mailto:taeminlee@sftribune.com). That was never good.

from: [ andrewmorris@californiasenate.com ](mailto:andrewmorris@californiasenate.com)

to: [ shadow@sftribune.com ](mailto:shadow@sftribune.com) ; [ baekhyun.byun@sftribune.com ](mailto:baekhyunbyun@sftribune.com) ; [ francesco.min@sftribune.com ](mailto:francesco.min@sftribune.com)

_I don’t know how you did it, but I know you and your team are behind this, Byun. Watch your back, I can end your career with a snap of my fingers._

Taemin was _mortified._ His heart skipped a beat, his blood turned cold in his veins and he felt dizzy as his eyes scanned over the screen. Fuck, fuck, _fuck._ How was this possible? How could he know? How could he have traced it back to them? His head was spinning with possible explanations and outcomes of this situation, and Baekhyun must have caught the sheer fear emanating from him, as he grabbed Taemin’s arm and dragged him to his office down the hall.

“Taemin, listen to me, it’s fine. It’ll be fine,” his voice was hushed when he shut the door to his office and pulled down the blinds, “this is scary, but Morris just made a huge mistake.”

“What mistake? He’s going to end our careers, Baekhyun, we don’t even know how far his connexions go, this could be _dangerous_ \--”

“Taemin, breathe. He just gave us even more tangible evidence that he threatens news outlets and freedom of press. We have this email in our account, in our _official_ professional accounts, and this guy was stupid enough to send it from _his_ official account. It’s like he wants us to build a case against him,” Baekhyun spoke calmly, but Taemin could hear the underlying shock in his voice. He wasn’t wrong. That was a beginner’s mistake.

* * *

“What’s wrong, Taemin?” Jongin’s voice was muffled at the other end of the call. He was whispering and sounded worried, which was only logical - who calls at two in the morning with good news?

“I just wanted…” Taemin was breathing longly. In through the nose, out through the mouth. He hadn’t been able to calm down since receiving the email, hadn’t been able to soothe the gnawing feeling at the pit of his stomach, the deep fear coursing through his veins and keeping him awake that he was making mistake upon mistake, that he was not only jeopardizing his career, but his friendship - _relationship?_ the incessant voice in his brain kept asking - with Jongin as well. The sinking feeling that this would only, _could only_ end badly and tear him away from the few things that helped him keep it together, “I just…”

“Are you okay? Did something happen?” Jongin spoke softly, the way he always spoke when he wanted to calm Taemin down. Taemin was so close, _so close_ to revealing everything, right there at two in the morning, sitting in his kitchen with his notes on Jongin’s revelations right in front of his eyes, the cold blue gleam of the computer screen lighting his face.

“I just…” tears clouded his vision. It couldn’t come out. No matter how much the reasonable part of his brain told him that he had to do it, it couldn’t come out. He couldn’t do it, he couldn’t hurt Jongin again when the other had been hurt so many times in the past. He couldn’t lose him again.

“Do you need me to come to you? Where are you?” soft ruffling in the background. Jongin had probably gotten out of bed. Taemin could hear the distinct noise of a belt and it pained him, how Jongin was ready to get out of bed and drive anywhere, in the early hours of the morning, if Taemin called. He couldn’t do it.

“Nothing, no, don’t… I’m sorry, I just…” Taemin tried to breathe. In through the nose, out through the mouth. His blurry vision settled for a moment, “I’m sorry, I just had an awful day at work and I wanted… I needed to hear your voice.” Jongin let out what sounded like a relieved sigh, and he chuckled, that warm, deep chuckle that made Taemin’s head spin.

“Next time, can you need to hear my voice at a more reasonable time? I have to get up early in the morning.”

Taemin laughed shortly - an empty laugh as he wiped away a tear on his cheek.

He couldn’t do it.

_Delete._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ahhhh things are slowly unfolding  
> i feel like this chapter is less busy information-wise than the previous one! i don't know if that's better haha  
> i made [moodboards](https://twitter.com/jnmpia/status/1330248300616966146) for the different characters we have so far (i'll update them as new characters show up along the way), check them out!  
> let me know what you thought so far ♥ are things going the way you expected them to? 
> 
> [twitter](https://twitter.com/jnmpia) | [playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2XkJL7DcbQ5v0gzBMlyA6N)


	6. some room to breathe

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> title from weak when ur around - blackbear

“So, Jongin, fill us in!”

They were standing at Union Square, among the crowd of people that had come to watch the lighting of the Christmas tree. It was a silly tradition, and Taemin knew it was wasteful and didn’t mean anything. He also knew that he loved Christmas decorations, that Jongin loved them as well, and that the look of pure happiness on his face when Jongin said they could go check it out together had been way too cute for him to refuse. 

It was him who’d proposed a reunion, telling Taemin late one night that he missed their college friends. Although he’d been hesitant at first, Taemin had agreed.

After all, over the past few months, Jongin had come to be a fixture of his daily life. He was who he thought of in the morning when he woke up, and who he thought of at night before drifting off to sleep. The fact that he’d deleted the evidence Jongin had given him regarding the Morris investigation put him at ease. Yes, that information will undoubtedly always be stored in his brain, but he’d made a pact with himself to never use it, and to get it the proper way. 

Jongin would never have to know. It might not have been completely honest, but Taemin knew Jongin was better off not knowing anything.

Life was good. Peaceful, for the first time in a while. Despite the threatening emails him and Baekhyun had gotten, there had been no additional sign that Morris was onto them in any way whatsoever, and he hadn’t reached out to them after sending that one, admittedly terrifying, email. Taemin’s investigation was moving forward, legally this time, and he saw Jongin so much that they’d started keeping toothbrushes at each other’s apartment. Not that that meant anything. Not that Taemin could let himself think that it meant anything - that slope was slippery, and tumbling down that path meant crashing into a huge pile of unresolved feelings and emotions, of sincere looks and touches in the intimacy of their homes, of soft words whispered to each other at night and sent to each other through texts, of cute dog pictures and pretty selfies. He was not ready for that.

Taeyong had been unavailable, so Kibum had dragged Minho along for the evening. As much as Taemin tried to remind himself that this  _ wasn’t _ a double date, it surely looked like one, with the way Kibum was pulling Minho close to him, letting Taemin and Jongin to stand together opposite them.

“I’m sure Taemin filled you in on what I’ve been doing,” Jongin sipped on his hot chocolate, and Taemin wanted to bury himself six feet underground at the obviously fake look of surprise on the other two’s faces.

“He hasn’t!” they all exclaimed at once, as if they’d rehearsed this together.  _ Of course they had _ , Taemin thought, this was all part of Minho’s  _ secure Taemin a date for our wedding _ plan.

And of course he’d told them all about Jongin. 

Jongin pursed his lips, a playful look of suspicion going between the couple and Taemin, before he laughed warmly and shook his head. He knew Taemin better than Taemin knew himself, he knew Taemin had been talking about Jongin with them, “well, I’m a lawyer now. Got back from New York a year ago. I work at Greenpeace now, it’s very interesting. Slightly frustrating, when you see the jerks we’re dealing with, but interesting,” he nodded softly, his hand shoved deep in his pocket. 

“That’s dope, man. Saving the earth and everything, huh?” Minho said with a smile, his own coffee held between his hands to warm them up. The Square was crowded, and they’d agreed to huddle together near the ice rink that had been set up for the holidays, so they could properly watch the lighting.

“Yeah, I guess so,” Jongin huffed a little bit, and Kibum gasped in pretend adoration.

“Look at you, so brave and strong! You’re like… an attorney version of Superman, right Taemin?” Taemin almost spit hot chocolate from his nose when he called him out like that - he was  _ insufferable _ , all of them were.

Jongin cleared his throat, laying a warm hand on Taemin’s back before taking it away and turning his attention back to their college friends, “what about you guys? What have you been up to?”

“Well, this one here just landed a job designing for Levi’s,” Minho started, chuckling when Kibum swatted at his chest in pretend modesty, whining  _ don’t _ , “you have, you’re very successful, honey! Be proud of it!” for all the bickering that they did, these two really loved each other, and Taemin was always amazed at how  _ healthy _ their relationship seemed. They really had no secrets for each other, which didn’t bode well for him, with all the times Minho mentioned in passing that he knew about all the secrets he told Kibum in confidence - including Jongin-related secrets. Still, it was cute. They had really found each other, “and I coach soccer at Stanford,” Minho continued, a proud grin on his face.

“Stanford? You, Minho Choi, star of the Berkeley soccer team, coach at  _ Stanford?  _ You traitor!” Jongin gasped, laughing in earnest, “I specifically recall you shouting ‘ _ we will eat you alive, motherfuckers _ ’ at every single Stanford-Berkeley soccer game back then!”

“I’m telling you, I’m ashamed whenever he brings up his job, I’m engaged to a defector,” Kibum fixed his beret, grinning at the way Minho instantly got fired up - like he always did.

“I’m not a defector! They offered me a job, their team is quite good, and their pay is higher than Berkeley’s--- you know what, I don’t need this from you guys,” Minho sighed, shaking his head, and for a second Taemin thought he was actually upset, before he broke out into laughter again and pulled Kibum close to his side.

“I’m just saying, for someone who slept, ate and breathed blue and yellow back then, you’re bleeding red and gray. Forgetting your roots, huh? What would your teammates from college say, Minho Choi?” Jongin teased, amused at the look of frustration on Minho’s face.

“All men do is lie,” Taemin noted with a chuckle, earning a nod of approval from both Jongin and Kibum.

“All of you, shut up,” Minho was laughing when he reached over to nudge the other three, “How is Soojung doing? You guys still dating?” Minho changed the subject in pretend innocence - it was so obvious, to Taemin, that the couple was going to try and address the subject of Jongin’s love life, and indirectly address the fact that Taemin and him had been seeing each other. He didn’t even know why they were being so sly about it, Jongin knew that Taemin had told Kibum about them - and that Kibum had inevitably spilled the tea to Minho the second he got home.

“Ah, no, things didn’t work out,” he said softly, shrugging and glancing at Taemin with a soft smile, before his attention turned back to Minho, “water under the bridge and all that. Besides, there’s someone else I’m more interested in now,” he added with a smug grin. Taemin’s ears turned red at that, along with his cheeks - how could he be so  _ obvious _ about this, in  _ public _ \- and Kibum didn’t even try to hide the pleased squeak that left his lips, “congratulations on the engagement, by the way, guys. Taemin told me about it. Spring wedding, right?” Jongin asked with a genuine smile on his lips.

Minho and Kibum nodded proudly, simultaneously holding up their hands to show their engagement rings - Kibum had designed them himself.

“May. We’re sorry that you didn't get an invitation, by the way, it’s just…” Kibum started, clearing his throat awkwardly.  _ It’s just that you disappeared for five years after you and Taemin fucked _ , Taemin could decipher in the look in his eyes.

“Nah man, that’s cool. You couldn’t have known I’d be back. I’m just glad to have run into Taemin and that we can hang out together again,” Jongin’s voice was warm as he spoke, his arm wrapping around Taemin’s shoulder to pull him close, a proud grin on his face. His arm stayed there. Neither him nor Taemin addressed it - they had a habit of not addressing the elephant in the room, it seemed - but Taemin couldn’t miss the slight quirk in Kibum’s eyebrow as he glanced at Taemin’s shoulder.  _ Shut up _ , Taemin mouthed towards him, only making Minho wiggle his eyebrows even more ostentatiously. He silently thanked all heavens on earth that Jongin either didn’t notice the exchange, or didn’t comment on it for his sake.

“I mean, to be fair, a spot  _ did _ just open in our wedding since Taemin’s not bringing a date anymo---”

“They’re starting, they’re starting!” Minho cut Kibum off, turning around to look at the giant tree right in the middle of Union Square, and Taemin never felt more thankful for the San Francisco City Hall’s timing than he did at that exact time. Minho took Kibum’s hand in his, and pressed a soft kiss to the ring on his finger. The look of sheer adoration they shared, even if it lasted for a split second, made Taemin smile a little. He wanted this. He missed this, the unspoken communication, the shared looks of understanding and love, the subtle pulling the other closer just to feel him around, the lingering touches and meaningful banter. As if on cue, Jongin’s hand wrapped around Taemin’s waist, as he maneuvered him to stand in front of him when a tall man came to stand  _ right  _ in front of Taemin, obscuring his vision of the Christmas tree. Jongin’s hands didn’t leave his waist, arms wrapping around his middle to pull him close. They didn’t address it, and Taemin felt thankful that Kibum and Minho were too wrapped up in each other to really take notice.

“Thank you for organising this. I missed this,” Jongin gently whispered in Taemin’s ear, the smile on his lips audible in the way he spoke. He didn’t specify what  _ this _ was, nor did Taemin ask him to. He knew what it meant, and he knew Jongin knew. It was way too obvious with the way they were with each other.  _ It  _ being undefined, never addressed - they had an agreement, things were supposed to stay casual. Never addressed, but always acknowledged, in the way Jongin looked into Taemin’s eyes just a beat too long, in the way he always kept him close when they were in public, and in the way they only had eyes for each other, even that one time they went out to a club with Taeyong and Seulgi and attractive people kept coming up to talk to them. 

They weren’t exclusive, they never had been. Taemin had done his fair share of not sticking to exclusivity in the past few weeks - Ian’s number was still saved in his phone, for god-knows what reason. He didn’t do that anymore, though. Not when he saw how hurt Jongin had looked when finding out, that one time they went to the park. Not when he could simply call Jongin and enjoy  _ all of him _ , from the pure pleasure he craved to the glances heavy with meaning, to the stupid conversations that kept them up until dawn - Jongin  _ still _ thought lions would win in a fight against tigers, even after all these years, and Taemin was absolutely appalled.  _ You suck, I’m going home, never call me again _ , he’d said, only to be interrupted when Jongin attacked his neck with kisses, mumbling  _ don’t leave me Taymin! _ , making Taemin laugh just a little too loud and squeak out  _ don’t call me Taymin, you know how to pronounce it-- _ They had been interrupted when Sehun, Jongin’s roommate, banged on the wall and shouted  _ for the love of god, guys, please, I have to be up for work in three hours! _

A collective  _ ah! _ came from the crowd gathered around the tree when the lights slowly started flickering on, Christmas music being played from the orchestra on the stage to their right. Jongin pulled him closer, and Taemin smiled a little. For the first time in a while, things seemed to fall into place. Kibum and Minho were happy and in love, things were going alright at work. Jongin was holding him, kissing his cheek and excitedly pointing to the lights. 

“The lights are twinkling in rhythm with the music, Taem, look!”

* * *

“Jongin, you’re gonna have to let go of me if you want me to open this door,” Taemin chuckled, hopelessly trying to fit the key into the keyhole. He wasn’t tipsy, he’d had just one beer at the gig he went to with Jongin - some concert he’d told him about in an apparently popular bar downtown. The music was good. Kissing Jongin was better. 

Baekhyun had been texting and calling him all night, but Jongin had convinced Taemin to ignore it.  _ You always focus too much on work when you’re with me, Taemin, just give me that one evening. I miss you. _ Taemin had laughed, his eyebrows raising in disbelief.  _ You literally slept over last night, Jongin, we were apart for exactly eight hours today _ . Jongin had laughed and pressed a soft kiss on the other’s lips.  _ I miss you all the time. _ Taemin had been convinced - he’d shut his phone off, giving Jongin his undivided attention.

Taemin shivered a bit, tilting his head back when Jongin gripped onto his hips from behind and busied himself placing dizzying kisses over the side of Taemin’s neck. A hand gently tugged on his scarf, pulling it to the side so his teeth could graze over a patch of skin right behind Taemin’s ear. The blonde let out a soft sound when Jongin started sucking, and it took a few moments for his eyes to flutter close and for him to lean back into the heady sensation. He could feel Jongin all around him, his burning touch on his hips, his strong frame pressed against his back, the wet, warm feeling of his lips against his neck, and the low rumble of a hum in his throat. It felt dangerous,  _ thrilling _ , to have him right up against him in the hallway, where Mrs. Banks from a down the hall could easily spot them if she were to just open her door.

“Jongin--” Taemin tried to push the other, a smile tugging at his lips when Jongin whined and circled his arms around his waist.

“I can’t help it, you’re so  _ hot _ . It took everything in me to not undress you and do all kinds of things to you right in the middle of the bar, baby,” his voice was low as he whispered in Taemin’s ear, breath hot against his neck, that low chuckle of his that turned Taemin on in all kinds of ways resonating in the empty hall when he nibbled on the shell of his ear.

“You can do all those things in a minute, just let me open the door, Jesus Christ. Behave,” he gently smacked his arm, laughing when the key finally fit in the hole and he was able to push the door open.

“Alright, where were we?” Jongin’s deep chuckle resonated in Taemin’s ears when he closed the door behind them, immediately pinning Taemin against it and looking straight into his eyes. It was dark in the apartment, the only lighting coming in was the warm glow from the streets through the french balcony doors, a red gleam in the apartment from the neon sign of the restaurant across the street. Taemin grinned, his head leaning against the door as he grabbed Jongin’s hips to pull him close, pressed up against him. 

He could feel the warmth coming from Jongin’s body, even through all the layers of clothes they were wearing, and saw that warmth mirrored in the way he looked at him. Those deep brown eyes, staring straight into his own, burned with something that set Taemin’s heart on fire. It felt good, to not have that guilt eating him alive and gnawing at his soul whenever he looked at the other man. It felt good to look into Jongin’s eyes, to stare into his soul and feel nothing but affection, nothing but want, nothing but that otherwise confusing feeling that everything that Jongin was was  _ right _ , that no matter when or where, Jongin was always what he needed. A relief of the soul, a balm to the heart in cold, lonely nights, burning touches and searing kisses when and where he needed them the most.

“I want you,” Taemin breathed out, one of his hands coming up to cup Jongin’s jaw and pull him into a deep, slow kiss. 

All those words, the ones he never dared saying aloud, the ones Seulgi had pointed to when he saw her, the ones Kibum and Taeyong kept hinting at whenever they talked about Jongin,  _ you love him, I knew you loved him. I love him. I love you.  _ All those words that were thought, that were felt but never spoken, were silently uttered in that kiss, in the way Jongin held him close at night and never let go. In the way Taemin looked at him when they were walking through the streets one evening and Jongin animatedly ranted about the last book he read and how life-changing it was, in the way Jongin was  _ always _ the first person Taemin texted in the morning and the last person he talked to before going to sleep. In the way whenever something happened, good or bad, Jongin was the only one he wanted by his side to share his feelings with. In the way Jongin wrapped him up and tugged him close in the quiet of the night, his hands caring and possessive on Taemin’s hips and his entire being pulling Taemin in, further and further each day, deeper than he would allow himself to, and yet he did, consciously allowing himself to play into that game, that dangerous waiting game that could only have one issue.  _ Be mine _ . In the way Jongin understood, understood everything without Taemin ever needing to voice anything out, because they had that special connection that went beyond words, a connection that reached deep into their hearts and tugged them back to each other, inevitably, irrevocably.  _ I love you, be mine, please be mine _ . 

Jongin’s hands slowly ran up and down Taemin’s sides under his sweater. A smile tugged at Taemin’s lips again when the taller man leaned down to resume his kisses along the line of his jaw, soft presses of his lips against Taemin’s smooth skin that could not, did not mean anything other than  _ you’re mine, I want you to be mine _ . 

Taemin felt dizzy, too warm under his clothes and his knitted beanie, when Jongin pressed kisses lower, tugging the hem of his sweater up to hold it against his chest. His hand played with the silky hair on Jongin’s head and his eyes fluttered close when lips wrapped around his nipple, the warm feeling of his tongue making his toes curl in his boots. How sweet, how utterly beautiful it was, when Jongin dragged his slow hands across his body like that, littered kisses on his skin and licked right where Taemin loved it. How  _ right _ it felt.

Taemin slowly blinked, his eyes gradually getting used to the darkness in the apartment. He took in his surroundings, fighting off the feeling of insanity that took over him when Jongin trailed his kisses lower and fumbled dangerously with the zipper on his jeans.

Taemin froze.

His hands stopped their incessant running through Jongin’s hair and his heart suddenly beat ten times quicker in his chest, thudding against his ribcage and threatening to burst. His blood turned cold in his veins and he was once again overtaken with pure, sheer  _ fear _ as he looked around his studio apartment.

“Fuck, fuck, Jongin--- What the fuck, stop---” Taemin’s voice was shaking, trembling deeply as he pushed the other man off. Fumbling around, he found the light switch next to the door and flipped it on, eyes widening when he took in the  _ chaos _ inside his apartment.

Kitchen cabinets were open, cutlery scattered on the floor and plates smashed against the hardwood floors. The sofa cushions were overturned, pillows stabbed open and fluff spread all around the carpet. His books had been ripped off the shelves, some of them torn up and some of his notebooks ripped apart and laying open on the floor, his private diaries obviously having been searched through. His bed was a mess, mattress laying askew next to the bed frame, all the doors and drawers in his closet and bedside table overturned and stipped bare.

Taemin’s eyes filled with tears as fright overtook his entire being and he gripped onto Jongin’s arms.

“Taemin, what the hell? What happened here? Did you get robbed?” Jongin asked, his eyes wide in shock as he took in the mayhem that was Taemin’s apartment, “are you okay? Should I call the police?” 

It wasn’t a robbery. Taemin knew that instantly. It was a warning. Firstly, his TV was still there, the box containing his jewelry and watches still sat on his dresser, the expensive watch Ten had bought him for their first anniversary shattered on the floor, but still in the apartment. It wasn’t a robbery, a thief would have taken anything of value, and even though Taemin didn’t have much of those, they were still there. This was Morris, this was his doing, him or the people working for him from god knows where. This was either intimidation or an attempt at finding evidence of his investigation, evidence that was---

His laptop. His notebook, “fuck!” Taemin called out, immediately rushing to the closet next to his bed. He blinked away some tears, hands shaking when he opened the door and reached behind the back panel, unlatching it to reveal a secret compartment in which he kept a safe with his laptop and notebook in there whenever he wasn’t home. Just in case. Just in case  _ this exact thing  _ happened. 

Taemin felt like throwing up, felt like screaming and running away as far and fast as he could. Fingers shaking, he quickly typed in the code to open the safe, and sighed out in relief when he saw that both his laptop and his notebook sat untouched in the box. 

He crumbled to his knees, sitting against his closet as he breathed out, trying to stop the shaking in his hands, stop the thoughts swarming his mind at the moment, the fear and the  _ what ifs  _ \- what if they had found something Taemin had forgotten to hide away, what if he’d been home when his home was invaded, what if Jongin had been there and had been hurt, what if this meant that they  _ knew _ he was behind the investigation. Did they know? Did they figure out he was Francesco Min, no matter how well he tried to hide his traces? Did they storm the homes of each person that worked at  _ Shadow _ \- Hannah, Baekhyun, Bess, Arthur - or did they target him  _ specifically _ ? How scared should he be? Was this the reason Baekhyun kept trying to call him earlier?

Taemin couldn’t stop it anymore, the tears blurring his vision and the sobs shaking his shoulders. He wasn’t sad - he didn’t care about material things, an apartment was just an apartment and stuff was just stuff. He was scared, profoundly and deeply scared. It only took a few seconds for warm arms to wrap around him and for Jongin to tug him close to his chest, to lay his head on top of his and whisper soothing words,  _ I’m here, Taemin, I’m always here. You’re safe, you’re with me, you’re fine. Nothing happened to you, I won’t let anything happen to you. You’re safe with me, Taemin, always.  _ He rocked them back and forth, enveloped Taemin in his warm embrace until he stopped crying and shaking, until his breathing got back to normal and the dread settled low in his stomach instead of clouding his thoughts and judgement, until his heart had stopped tightening and he felt grounded in Jongin’s presence, hands laying on his back to grasp at something, anything to keep him in the present and away from the terrifying thoughts and scenarios playing in his head.

“We need to call the police, Taemin,” Jongin whispered after a while, after he’d tugged his beanie off to gently stroke through his hair.

Taemin shook his head. They couldn’t, shouldn’t call the police. If Morris had connections that ran as deep as hiring people to storm his apartment, there was no way Taemin could be sure that his connections didn’t run through the San Francisco Police Department as well. They would be no help, and Taemin didn’t trust them in the least, not after everything he’d found out about Morris throughout his investigation.

“We can’t call the police, they can’t help me with this,” he whispered, hoping that Jongin wouldn’t ask any further questions. Foolishly.

“What do you mean? Taemin, your place was robbed, we need to report it,” Jongin sounded confused, he pulled away to look into Taemin’s eyes with a frown, his thumb reaching up to wipe away a stray tear on his cheekbone.

“I can’t report it, Jongin. This is not--” he breathed in and out softly. It had to be done eventually. This was bound to happen, the truth was bound to come out. Deleting the evidence hadn’t been enough, and Taemin had been stupid to think it would have been enough. He was in too deep, there was no turning back, “this is not a robbery, they haven’t taken anything. This… this is a house search, they were looking for-- they were looking for this,” Taemin motioned to his laptop and notebook on the floor, gulping down the big lump that swelled in his throat as he realized that this was it, he had to spill the truth out.

“Your laptop? Why would they look for your laptop? Who’s they? Taemin, what’s going on? You’ve been keeping stuff from me, from all of us,” Jongin’s voice was firm but gentle as his fingers ran through Taemin’s hair, eyes searching for anything, any hint of the cause of Taemin’s worries on his face, “I know you, Taemin. I know what you look like when you’re ridden with anxiety and when you’re keeping secrets from me, I know the look on your face when you’re not telling me the whole truth. You can trust me, you know that, right? I won’t ever let anything happen to you, ever.” 

So Taemin told him. Told him everything. Every detail. Told him that he wasn’t just a reporter at the  _ Tribune _ , that he worked as an investigative journalist. That he was the one behind the story on the exploitation of Peruvian immigrants by major companies, the story that had made so much noise a year back. That he had been the one to reveal the allegations of sexual assault on Morris in the  _ Washington Post _ , he was the anonymous writer, him and Baekhyun were. That when he ran into Jongin at the Greenpeace gala, he wasn’t just writing a piece about the event, he was digging for information on links between Senator Morris and the hacks on several environmental organizations, Greenpeace included. That he had no idea Jongin worked there when they started investigating, that he only figured out the irony of the situation when Jongin brought up the subject himself, late one night, after they’d made love. That he’d written down everything, every single word Jongin had said, the next day, and never told him. That it had helped his investigation, that he was sorry, and that he had deleted everything, every evidence of Jongin’s words, that it was as if they had never been said. That he was sorry, once again.

Jongin was quiet as Taemin looked at him through tear-filled eyes, his fingers shaking again when he tried to take his hand. Jongin pulled away. He took his hand off and sat a bit further from Taemin, eyebrows furrowed when he looked into the void and processed the load of information he’d just been given.

“Jongin, I---”

“Did you know? When I reached out to you again, did you know?” his voice was empty of any emotion, and it turned Taemin’s blood cold again, colour fading from his face.

“No, Jongin, I didn’t-- I told you, I didn’t know, I didn’t figure it out until you told me about the hacks…” Taemin’s voice was shaking, disturbed by the lump in his throat that threatened to burst.

“You didn’t know? Really?” his gaze was piercing when he looked up to Taemin, right into his eyes. The eyes that reached deep into his soul, only this time it was a crushing, accusing glare. Not the softness he was used to, not  _ Jongin _ , “you’re an investigative journalist, your whole life revolves around looking for clues, making conclusions and digging for information and you didn’t know?” when Taemin shook his head again, blinking away some tears and looking at the floor to avoid the other’s pinning gaze, Jongin chuckled a bit. It was empty. Cold, “but you did know. After I fucked up and told you professional, private information about the hacks, you knew. You knew, and you consciously remembered everything and used that information for your own investigation. And you never told me. Fuck, Taemin, that was more than  _ two months ago!  _ You’ve kept this information for two month, you  _ used me _ for two whole months?”

“I didn’t use you, I didn’t-- I deleted everything, Jongin, you have to believe me,” he was feeling dizzy again when his hand reached out to the other, only to be pushed away once more when Jongin stood up to pace through the wrecked apartment, “I deleted the evidence, I stopped asking you about work, I kept it separate--” Taemin’s voice cracked at the end of his sentence and he stood up as well.

“So then why didn’t you tell me?”

“I didn’t want… I didn’t want you to think I was just using you,” Taemin admitted in a hushed whisper, tears streaming down his face now as he held onto the kitchen table for balance. He felt like blacking out, the rush of emotions and fear crashing down on him like a tidal wave. He felt his insides turn to ice when Jongin laughed humorlessly, standing in the middle of the room.

“Isn’t that what you’ve been doing for more than four months, though? Using me?” his words stung like a thousand needles pushed into Taemin’s skin, pushed into his heart, “taking information without telling me, using me as an easy access into this side of your investigation? Only calling me up when you’ve hit a slump?”

“No, Jongin, this is not-- I need you around, I need  _ you _ around, not lawyer Jongin, I need  _ Jongin _ around, you’re not just---” he was cut off when Jongin spoke, a bit louder this time.

“Only when it’s suitable for you! What am I, to you, Taemin?” he looked at Taemin, an icy, accusing glare in his eyes and his fists clenched, “your friend? Or just an easy information, a quick lay when you need one, a convenient fuck when you’re horny, and then someone you can just ghost for weeks in a row, only to storm back in whenever you feel like it, whenever you need me? And what am I? I’m the fucking moron who waits on the sidelines, I’m the idiot who’s there at your beck and call, with open arms when you need me again,” his voice was starting to shake, Taemin couldn’t miss the sheen of tears welling in Jongin’s eyes as well, “to think-- to think that I thought there could be something more, that you weren’t a selfish jerk, that maybe you-- that maybe you were feeling it too--” he stopped talking, visibly gulping back a sob. Jongin walked past Taemin, who was staring at the floor, unable to meet Jongin’s eyes, unable to look into the face of betrayal and hurt. 

“You promised me-- Jongin, you promised me casual worked for you,” Taemin spoke in a calm voice, knuckles turning white where he gripped the edge of the kitchen table to keep him from slipping and falling down to his knees, “you said this was what you wanted. I warned you, from the very beginning, that I couldn’t handle commitment, and you said it was fine.”

“I said I was fine with casual, Taemin, I didn’t say I was fine with being used as a human dildo when you needed one or as a treasure trove of information for your stupid fucking investigation,” Jongin bit out. Reached into Taemin’s heart and squeezed it hard, crushed it with his voice, stepped on it with the coldness of his words. Taemin could see, through the tears in his eyes, that even Jongin regretted what he said as soon as he said it.

“That’s not true. Jongin, you know that’s not true,” Taemin spoke, voice cracking when he sat down, holding his head to try and stop his entire world from spinning and crashing down around him.

“Taemin, that’s not-- that’s not what I meant. I can’t do this right now. Fuck. Hold on,” Jongin tapped around on his phone before bringing it to his ear. 

“Who are you-- don’t call the police, Jongin--”

“I’m not calling the poli-- hi, Seulgi? Yeah, can you come get Taemin please? At his place? Yeah, he needs to stay with you tonight, he can’t be alone,” it was impossible for Seulgi not to hear the hurt in Jongin’s tone and the way his voice wavered, fighting through the tears that threatened to spill from his eyes. He spoke with Seulgi some more, telling him that Taemin needed to stay somewhere else and that he would fill her in when she got there, “I can’t stay here, Taemin,” he said after having hung up, after a beat of silence, “I can’t… I need time.” he reached to grab his coat and walked to the door.

There was no point in holding him back now, Taemin thought. There was no point in trying to explain that he’d fucked up, that he knew he’d fucked up, that he was sorry. That he didn’t mean it, that he  _ loved _ \--- there was no point.

“Stay away from me, for the time being,” Jongin breathed out, and for the first time since the truth had been laid out on the table, Taemin could see a hint of softness in his eyes, that spark of warmth that was essentially Jongin. How he always looked at Taemin, and he would be fooled to think that it was anything else than  _ love _ .

Taemin sat there, alone, surrounded by the ruins of his belongings and the shambles of his life, when Jongin walked out of his apartment. Out of his life.

* * *

**Taemin - Jan. 5 - 11:36 pm**

_ im so sorry. _

**Taemin - Jan. 8 - 9:14 am**

_ please talk to me, tell me youre okay. _

**Taemin - Jan. 11 - 8:53 pm**

_ im sorry. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm very unsure about the dynamic of this chapter, especially the first part vksnvsfdjknv  
> i don't know if it's well balanced and if it makes sense, i think it's veeery wordy but oh well  
> i'll probably edit the hell out of it when i come back to it tomorrow, but i wanted to post it tonight or it was going to annoy me all night  
> i hope you liked it enough, let me know what you thought, i always love hearing your impressions ♥ 
> 
> [twitter](https://twitter.com/jnmpia) | [playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2XkJL7DcbQ5v0gzBMlyA6N)


	7. tell me that you think this was smart

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> title from waiting game - banks

“We can’t drop this case, Baekhyun, this could be the biggest political spying scandal since Watergate,” Taemin exclaimed, his hands slamming on Baekhyun’s kitchen counter. His boss gave a long sigh, burying his face in his hands and then carding his fingers through his hair.

“I hear that, Taemin, I do,” he started, “but this is getting serious. It’s not just email threats anymore, they actually broke into our houses and searched them. You weren’t home then, and I wasn’t either, but Hannah was. Her husband was. Her children were. Do you know how scary that was for them? The kids won’t sleep through the night anymore and they had to relocate to her sister’s house because they’re fucking _terrified_ , Taemin.”

“But we have proof! We build a case! We have Irene’s documents proving tax evasion, embezzling, media bribery, how he was buying out votes. We have the email threats, we have the pictures they sent us of me going to NCT’s office, of the kids, we have tangible proof of threat and circumstantial evidence that Morris or his associates stormed our homes, what more do you want? This could take their hold on the senate seat down, fuck, this could take the whole Republican Party down, Baekhyun,” Taemin’s voice sounded desperate.

“It could, but just think for a second,” Baekhyun stood up with a sigh, picking up his cup of coffee to take a sip. They had decided against meeting at the office to discuss this, with Boah’s eyes on them at all times, it simply seemed too dangerous. They couldn’t risk another break-in of their homes - everybody at the _Shadow_ team had been burgled - and they couldn’t risk Boah finding out that they were behind the publication in the _Washington Post_. Not only was it dangerous for their safety, it could also send their whole investigation crashing down, “it’s not just us we’re talking about here. You might be okay with taking the gamble, but this is going _far_ and extending beyond the scope of just us. People in our team have kids, they have families, they can’t put them through that because _we_ are chasing a story - the two of us _._ The police won’t take our statements, and I’m pretty sure Morris’ connections run deep in the police, from what my informant told me.”

“Who’s your informant?”

“I’m still not telling you that, Taemin.”

“So you don’t trust me?”

“I do trust you.”

“But you think I’m unreliable.”

“I think you’re in too deep and you might go rogue if I give you my informant’s name. Just know it’s someone from the Senate, that’s it. I’m not telling you anything else,” Baekhyun said stubbornly, making Taemin sigh. He leaned back in his chair, nervously chewing on his lower lip.

“Don’t you get it, though? We’re not just sitting on a gold mine here, Baekhyun, we’re sitting on a fucking ticking time-bomb and it’s going to explode whether we set it off or not. People are going to find out about this, if we’ve heard of it I’m sure other publications have as well. I’ve heard talk that some people at the _New York Times_ were trying to dig up dirt on Morris as well. Morris’ mandate is going to blow up, and there _will_ be a huge political scandal anyway. The only difference here for us is that we could be the people setting it off. We could finally get our name out there, you heard what the _Post_ told us when they agreed - we could go work for them full-time in Washington, we could finally go national. We could do some good work, do work that actually matters,” his eyebrows were furrowed as he spoke, hand tapping on the table to punctuate his sentence. It felt like talking to a brick wall, like Baekhyun had completely shut him out.

“We can do good work, just not this one. I’m the editor here, it’s my job to look out for my team, too.”

“Why did you become a journalist? Why did you join _Shadow_? Why did you hire me? You know I’m good, you know I can get on that story and crack it open, you know I can work informants better than most people can, so why aren’t you letting me in?”

“You can work your informants good? Is that why you still haven’t been able to get an interview with NCT? It’s been _months,_ Taemin, what are you doing?”

“I told you I’ll get them! Look, we already put out one story, and now the news of Morris’ harassment case is going national. There’s been _protests_ last week to get him expelled. People are getting angry, they’re realizing they’ve voted for a criminal, he barely even has any legitimacy anymore.”

“I know that,” Baekhyun was starting to sound annoyed, “I also know the way things go usually. There’ll be protests, then there’ll be a hearing, the Commission won’t find anything conclusive, and he won’t be expelled because Republicans have a hold in the Senate and won’t vote him out anyway.”

“So? That’s it? You just give up, before you even put up a fight? You just look at yourself in the mirror every morning, and say to yourself ‘if this is bigger than me, then why even fight it?’ Is that it?”

“No, come on, calm down,” Baekhyun tried to reason him, but the look of pure shock on Taemin’s face betrayed how disappointed he was in his behavior, “I just think you and I aren’t big enough to take this on on our own.”

“Are you _hearing yourself_?” Taemin sounded positively angry now. His voice was resonating louder in Baekhyun’s kitchen, “do you remember? When we wrote the first story? You said this was important, you said we had to do this. You said it was good that we’d sent the story to the _Post_ , because their motto is _Democracy Dies in Darkness_ , and this was exactly what we were doing - holding Morris accountable, holding the system that let this happen accountable. He’s been harassing people, threatening them, buying out votes, spying on his political opponents for we don’t even know how long, and you’ll just let it slide? Because you’re scared?”

“I’m not scared.”

“You’re scared! You’re a fucking coward, and you’re too scared of Boah and of losing your job to do the things that _matter_! Don’t you think the journalists behind the big stories were scared? Don’t you think the people who covered Watergate were scared? Don’t you think the people who covered the Pentagon Papers were scared? We know we can get sued every day in this job, hell, I’ve had more defamation cases than I can count,” Taemin could see Baekhyun flinch from how loud he was screaming, but just thought _‘tough’._ He needed to say this, he couldn’t let something as important as this slip away. 

“I know we can get sued, but the _Tribune_ won’t pay for our legal fees on this one, and this extends beyond just a lawsuit, Taemin, this is people’s _safety_ we’re talking about.”

“This is precisely why we’re doing this job! We’re doing this job because of stories like these, because without us people don’t now how much the system is fucking them over, because the press is the only thing that stands between the whole country falling into tyranny and _this_ is a direct attack on the press!”

“Tell me a big part of you pursuing this isn’t because you want a _Washington Post_ byline,” Baekhyun said in an accusatory tone, and for the first time that evening - for the first time since he’d worked with him, Taemin didn’t know what to respond to that. They fought a lot, it was part of the job, the underlying tension between reporter and editor. But that hit close to home. “Taemin,” Baekhyun started, his teeth clenched and his gaze cold and firm, “you know I love you. You know I think you’re a good journalist. But I’m not letting you do that. I’m still your boss, and this is where I step in, I’m sorry,” his voice was calm, a striking contrast to the way Taemin had been screaming, letting his anger out. He was sure it wasn’t just the case that got him this fired up. 

Sure, he was angry about political malpractices and about Baekhyun’s refusal to open his eyes on how important this story was, but it had also been a few days since Jongin had walked out of his apartment. A few days since he’d last heard of him. A few days since, for the first time in a while, Taemin found himself not sleeping through the night anymore, unable to eat properly, to think properly. His thoughts were always coming back to those words, ringing in his head over and over again, twisting in his brain and making his stomach churn, turning his vision blurry. _Stay away from me_. As if Taemin was dangerous, as if he was a _threat_ to Jongin. Something to be kept at arm’s length. It made him sick to his stomach, sick of himself and sick of the way his passion for his work had turned him calculating. 

It was ironic, how something that set him on fire could turn him ice cold.

“Fuck you,” Taemin huffed out, getting up from the stool he was sitting on and gathering his stuff, heading towards the door.

“I’ll see you on Monday! Take care,” Baekhyun called out, voice straining and showing how evidently tired he was.

“Yeah, yeah, take care,” Taemin replied. He left Baekhyun’s house, his blood boiling as he checked his phone.

_No new messages_.

* * *

It was Monday, then it was Thursday, then it was March. If Taemin’s life had been a montage, it would have been those cheesy teenage flick montages of days, weeks, months and seasons coming and going while the main character sits unmoving in front of a window -- Kristen Stewart. He was Kristen Stewart in Twilight, he realized.

“I thought we agreed that your obsession with this film should stay in 2009 where it belongs,” Kibum scoffed when Taemin explained his analogy, throwing another bag of onion flavored crisps in the shopping cart, “if you and Jongin end up having a half-mortal half-vampire scary-looking demon of a baby, can I be the godfather?”

“Babe, take a couple more, it’s not going to waste anyway,” Minho whispered to his fiancé and motioned to the onion flavored crisps.

“No, you don’t understand, that montage is exactly what life feels like right now,” Taemin mumbled, taking the crisps Kibum had thrown in and putting them back on the shelf, “we don’t need seven of those.”

“We do need seven of those. Our house, our rules,” Minho gasped, positively scandalized. 

Baekhyun had ordered Taemin to drop the case and focus on regular reporting work, to put Shadow, Morris and the story on the backburner for a little while. Just until it was safe, just until they could go out and investigate some more, when they dropped off of Morris’ radar, when Boah returned to being a normal boss, and not a boss that would search their desks and email inboxes to monitor that they _weren’t_ on the case, just like they had promised her. The _Washington Post_ had agreed to give them more time, in light of the recent events and as a safety protection measure, but Taemin knew that an opportunity like that, investigating and reporting for the _Post_ , even under an anonymous byline, was a once-in-a-career type of opportunity. His hopes of perhaps proving himself to them and getting a Washington job offer, finally joining a national publication as an investigative reporter, seemed to stray further and further away with each day that passed. 

Baekhyun had made some compelling arguments - investigating any further would not only threaten their safety, but other reporters on the team and their families as well. Morris was involved and it seemed that he wouldn’t back down, and wouldn’t stop intimidating them, no matter how illegal it got. Judging by the San Francisco Police Department’s refusal to file their legal complaint, it seemed that his connections ran deep, not only through Northern Californian media outlets, but also through the police and judiciary systems. 

There was simply no way out, Baekhyun and Taemin had come to figure out. It was almost ironic. They were two journalists sitting on one of the biggest scandals of corruption, misuse of public funds and political spying in California in decades, perhaps on a national scale since Watergate, and there was no way they could dig deeper without risking theirs or their coworkers’ safety. Deep down, he understood, though. It was frustrating, and it was possibly ruining his career, but he understood. 

From diving into a state-wide political scandal, Taemin had been relegated to reporting on silly stories for the ‘ _uplifting news_ ’ section of the paper - the irony was not lost on him that he was supposed to uplift readers with wholesome news when he hated roughly every single aspect of life itself. His latest hit? _Dog at the Sequoia Retirement Home shows unexpected talent! Turn to page 24 to find out more!_

Pathetic. 

“Fine, but if we get all those, we need to get a different flavor as well, you know Seulgi’s allergic to onions,” Taemin pointed out, grabbing a few cases of beer to put in their cart. It had been Taeyong’s idea, to throw a party with their college friends so Taemin could remember that life wasn’t pointless and that he used to have other things in his life besides work and, for a brief period, Jongin. It was the Emergency Taemin Initiative, something that had become a regular occurence, when he thought of it - they’d done the same right after Ten had dumped him, all those months back. It seemed so far away, now. There was no questioning that Jongin had blown an absolute storm in his head and in his life. It was only a few months, but Taemin found it obvious, in the way he didn’t seem able to function anymore, after Jongin had gone radio silent. He’d left an empty space in his life, uncomfortable and gaping, so obviously there. 

They were never official, they were never anything other than friends who occasionally fucked each other - for lack of a better term - but Jongin’s absence felt significant, left Taemin lost and afraid. Friends didn’t feel that way about each other, he was pretty sure. Friends didn’t think of their friend when they saw the sun rise over the Golden Gate Bridge on their morning run, when they saw the rusty orange color of the steel against the paling blue, pastel pink and burning yellow of the sky in the early hours of the morning and thought “ _this, Jongin feels like this. Like sunrises over the Golden Gate._ ” 

A party was, in the face of Taemin’s emotional disarray, greatly needed, and because Kibum and Minho had the biggest house out of all of them, they agreed to host it. It was good practice, they thought, for when they would have to host a bigger party for their wedding - even though there was barely any similarity between their fancy wedding with more than a hundred guests and a party thrown with people from college with the sole objective of getting drunk and high the way they did when they were twenty-one and their biggest worry was making it to their 8 am lecture the next day. 

* * *

Seulgi was radiant, Taemin thought. She’d always been beautiful, and Taemin had actually considered marrying her, when he was seven years old, believed in marriage and still thought he liked girls. But there was something different about her that night, in the way her long hair curled away from her face, in the smoky black around her eyes dotted in golden flecks of glitter, in the way she smiled at everyone, even more hyper than she usually was, and nervously checked her phone while biting on her short fingernails and glancing at the door every minute.

“What’s up with you?” he asked her, sipping on his beer - another obscure local craft beer Taeyong had brought for the party. It was too bitter and the taste of hops was too pronounced for Taemin’s liking, but it got the job done. He was looking forward to Kibum’s mojito though, the man’s years of experience as a bartender when they were in college were always useful in situations like these. 

“Nothing, what’s up with you?” it was too defensive, the way she instantly reacted and deflected the conversation onto Taemin, and the way she stuffed her phone in her jeans pocket, as if she’d been caught red-handed.

“Yeah, man, what’s up with you? I haven’t seen you in ages, how’s life?” Taeyong jumped in the conversation - even though Taemin was absolutely positive he’d seen him sitting on the balcony all the way across the room just a second ago. How fast he’d made it from there to the kitchen counter they were leaning against, he had absolutely no idea. Despite knowing him for over 20 years, the man was sometimes still a mystery to him.

“I’m sensing something fishy,” he noted, eyes flicking between his two oldest friends back and forth, trying to decipher any hint explaining their odd behavior.

“Speaking of fishy, have I told you about this new tank plant I bought? See, it’s made for tropical environments, so I thought I’d put it with my danios, but the company told me they’d shipped it over a week ago, and it still hasn’t---”

“Tyong, no offense, but one, I have no idea what you’re talking about, two, you need to find hobbies people can relate to and three, you need to be less obvious when you’re trying to change the subject,” Taemin laughed quietly, rising his eyebrows in amusement when Taeyong and Seulgi exchanged a look of defeat. He brought the beer bottle to his lips again and took another sip, a slight wince washing over his features at the bitter taste.

“Okay, here’s the thing,” Taeyong started, and Taemin sighed in relief. He could hear the music playing in the room, some old tunes they used to listen to when they were in college - whoever decided that Party Rock Anthem had to be brought back from 2011 had to be cursed, Taemin thought. It was probably Sehun, seeing how hyper he was when the first notes hit, “we know that this party is supposed to like, cheer you up and be a college-only reunion…”

“But?” Taemin asked with an inquisitive look on his face,

“But,” Seulgi chewed on her lower lip, an unsure look in her eyes, “so. I’m just going to come out and say it,” she took a deep breath, and Taemin thought that she was either being overly dramatic about a tiny thing or she had decided to go rogue and invite Ten or Jongin. _Please let it not be the latter_ , he thought, “basically, I’ve seeing someone and it’s been going really well and I thought it would be okay to invite her to the party so you could meet her and she just told me she was bringing her cousin because he’s been feeling stressed and I know we weren’t supposed to bring people in but he seems like he needs it please don’t hate me--” she blurted out in one breath, barely stopping between her words, a pink shade coloring her cheeks. She winced, as if bracing herself for a Taemin-trademark sulking. 

Which didn’t happen. Instead, Taemin laughed, causing a sigh of relief from both Seulgi and Taeyong - who apparently seemed aware of this whole ordeal. 

“What? You were really losing your shit over that?” Taemin asked, setting down his beer on the counter so he could hold his sides and try to contain his laughter, “dude! You freaked me out for a second there, I thought something awful had happened and you’re just telling me you have a girlfriend? That’s the opposite of bad news,” he wiped a tear of laughter away from the corner of his eyes, and Seulgi chuckled a little as well - she must have realized how silly this all seemed now, “hold on, hold on,” Taemin said, suddenly dead serious, a frown on his face, “ _fuck you,_ why did Taeyong know about this and not me! I’ve known you since we were born, I have best friend privilege!” he called her out, making the three of them grin in amusement.

“Taem, it’s just… She told me right before we learned about… the whole _Jongin_ thing, so it didn’t seem appropriate for her to tell you, and then you kind of… shut the whole world out, and we barely could get a hold of you,” his tone wasn’t accusatory, but there was a glint in his eyes akin to reproach, Taemin thought.

“I’m sorry about that, again,” he pouted slightly, tugging on both Seulgi and Taeyong’s wrists to bring them closer, “I just didn’t want to be a Debbie Downer, I didn’t mean to shut you out,” he explained, and the hug his two best friends gave him let him know things were okay. It was nice, knowing that even when he messed up and acted like an idiot, they would still be by his side, calling him out on his shit, but by his side nonetheless. Taemin needed people like that, especially at times like these.

“Yeah, well, next time you try to shut us out it’s over for your ass,” Taeyong said with a frown, even though he was pulling Taemin and Seulgi in close and nuzzling the top of their heads. 

“I’ll hold you to that,” Taemin said with a gentle scoff, pushing the others away so he could brush his fingers through his hair and rearrange himself, “so, who’s the lucky one? When is she coming?”

“She should be here any minute,” Seulgi said, glancing at her phone once more with a smile, “she’s really sweet. Just a heads up, she’s a little intimidating, but she’s actually a sweetheart. She doesn’t have many friends, she works a _lot_ , and so does her cousin, so she’ll be happy to be here. Please be nice?”

“I’ll be nice if she gets my stamp of approval,” Taemin said with a teasing grin.

“Oh god, please don’t give her the whole best friend interview thing, this is not one of your investigations,” Seulgi blurted out with a chuckle before widening her eyes, slapping a hand over her mouth in a useless attempt at taking back the words she’d just said - she knew how sensitive the topic was for Taemin, given how he’d basically been demoted to a mere reporter, “shit, I’m sorry--”

“It’s fine,” Taemin brushed her concerns away with a wave of his hand, even though his eyes had taken on a slightly darker glint as he sipped on his beer, looking away towards the balcony, “I’m gonna go outside for a smoke, come get me when they arrive?” the other two nodded slowly, and Taemin could not miss the sense of awkwardness that had settled, Taeyong staring at him with visibly concerned eyes and Seulgi trying her best to smile, even though it was obvious that all she wanted to do was cringe with her whole body.

Taemin grabbed his jacket and made his way towards the balcony, where a few people were already sitting around, listening to a different, calmer music than the people inside were, some of them playing a drinking game Taemin could not for the life of him remember the rules to. 

It was odd, all of them being together, it was odd how natural it was for them to age back 5 years when the group was gathered again, even though their lives were vastly different from the way things were in college. Kibum and Minho were getting married, Sehun had moved to Italy to pursue a modelling career - it had been lucky timing that Kibum had decided to throw the party right when he was in California for a shoot - Kyungsoo had just become a father to a little girl, Jinki to a little boy, Yeri and Taeyong were purposefully avoiding each other as best as they could, even though they’d only hooked up once years ago, and Chanyeol was doing his best at hiding the enormous crush he had on Yeri, and failing miserably. Everything was so different from the way life was when they were younger, seemed so much more complicated, and somehow, that little piece of youth never died in them, was always brought back to life when they met up. 

“You alright, man?” Minho asked as he leaned against the balcony railing next to Taemin, watching the orange glow that illuminated the younger man’s features when he lit his cigarette and inhaled deeply, “enjoying the party?”

“Yeah, yeah, I am. Thanks for that, I needed that,” Taemin smiled, his elbows on the cold steel rail and the hood of his hoodie pulled up over his head, “how’s wedding preps going? Still haven’t called it off?”

It made Minho laugh, his foot gently nudging Taemin’s shin. _This is nice_ , Taemin thought. They’d had a bit of a _thing_ in freshman year of college, Taemin and his commitment issues had understandably broken fresh-faced eighteen-year-old Minho’s heart, and for a while things had been awkward between them - until Taemin introduced him to his friend Kibum. After years of having a Tom-and-Jerry relationship and awkwardly dancing around each other, none of them having the guts to ask the other out, they’d finally gotten together during their senior year, and the rest was history.

“I think Kibum is considering it each time I insist that we don’t need or have the means for catering from a five-star French chef or for Marc Jacobs himself to design our tuxedos, but he loves me too much to call it off. He’s stuck with me now,” Minho chuckled a little, sipping on the mojito Kibum had probably made for him.

“You know, for someone who used to pretend to barf whenever Ten and I would so much as _hold hands_ in public, he’s getting awfully cheesy, what have you _done_ to hi-- nevermind, I don’t wanna know,” Taemin frowned and shook his head, which made Minho laugh wholeheartedly. He patted Taemin on the head, in the way he always did. He’d always been babied by his friends, even though they were all roughly the same age.

“You don’t,” Minho agreed with a teasing grin, playing with the straw in his glass while he fixed Taemin’s hood with the other hand, “how’s the date research going? You know Kibum won’t let his best man go stag at his wedding,” Taemin knew he was only half-joking, and he scoffed a bit.

“So far, no cigar,” a small pout grew on his face, “my best bet was Jongin but… you know,” Minho nodded understandingly at that, his lips pressed into a thin line, “I’ll just go stag and hook up with whoever your best man is, isn’t that like, a wedding tradition?” 

“My best man is my very straight, very married, very dad brother, you will _not_ hook up with him, Taemin.”

“Hm, _daddy_ ,” Taemin said in a playfully seductive voice, wiggling his eyebrows teasingly, which made Minho gasp in a positively outraged manner.

“ _Taymin_ Lee, if you don’t shut up--”

“Come on, I’m kidding,” Taemin laughed happily, glad to see that he was still able to mess with Minho that way, “I’ll find a date, don’t worry.” He did have a lot of spare time now that he wasn’t investigating anymore, which honestly left him a bit clueless. What did people _do_ for fun, when they weren’t working? His whole life had revolved around work for so long that he actually never learned how to occupy his free time. Sure, he had interests - books, films, video games - but there was only so much sitting on the couch one could do. Maybe he _was_ starting to see what Ten meant when he said Taemin worked too much and left no available space for other important things in his life, Ten included. Huh.

“I’m really sorry about what happened with Jongin, by the way… He is, too,” Minho blurted out before realizing what he’d said, eyes growing slightly wider, “I-I mean--”

“You _saw him_?” Taemin asked, incredulous, his hand immediately gripping tighter onto the steel rail.

“I--- Well, Kibum and I ran into him in a bar last week,” he sheepishly tried to explain, the hand rubbing on his nape showing signs of nervosity.

“What did he say? What did he look like? Did he look sad? Does he look like he’s sleeping and eating well? You said he was sorry, did he mention me--”

“Taemin, this is exactly why we didn’t tell you,” Minho sighed gently, reaching over to squeeze Taemin’s shoulder in an attempt at calming the frenzy the information had apparently put him in. Taemin’s heart was beating way too quick, his cheeks tinted red and his eyes shining. Somehow, coping with Jongin being gone was alright if he simply forgot his existence, if he tucked Jongin away in the back of his mind and let him live only in his memory. Let him not have moved on, let him always be the gorgeous, smart, sweet man Taemin had re-discovered and not the picture of anger and sorrow he’d seen _that_ night. 

“But you did tell me. So go through with it. I promise you I won’t do anything stupid,” his voice was calmer, expression a bit less pained when he took a drag from his cigarette, blowing the smoke away from Minho’s face.

“You’re going to do something stupid.”

“I’m _not_ ,” he tapped the ashes out over the handrail, “I just want to know if he’s okay, he hasn’t been replying to my texts. I got the hint and stopped sending them but--- Minho, he just looked so _sad_ that night. _I_ did that, _I_ hurt him like that, and I can’t find any way to fix it or make him feel better, so just knowing that he’s okay will help. Please,” his expression had turned serious, eyes staring right into Minho’s, “ _please_.”

Minho sighed in resignation, fingers slightly rubbing at his forehead and eyes screwed shut.

“He seemed fine, Taem. As fine as he could be, I guess. He was having a drink with a friend, he seemed in a good mood. He did talk about you, but I’m not telling you what he said, that’s not my story to tell. If he wanted you to know, he would’ve called you,” maybe Minho’s words were a bit too honest, a bit too harsh in Taemin’s ear, maybe they made him flinch a bit and take a small step back, but he knew he was right. He couldn’t pry in on Jongin’s personal life without having been invited to do that. There had been too much _prying_ lately, the prying was what got them there in the first place. Still, he felt a pang of melancholy upon hearing Minho’s words. Jongin was _fine_. Jongin was in a good mood. Jongin was hanging out with a _friend_ \- what friend? As far as he knew, he didn’t have a lot of friends in San Francisco. 

Jongin talked about him.

* * *

Seulgi’s girlfriend was nice. Seungwan, her name was. Somehow, she looked familiar, but he couldn’t exactly place where he knew her from - probably from school somewhere, she did say she grew up in San Francisco, and the Korean community was pretty close. She seemed sweet, although a bit intimidating, Taemin could sense she was a sweet girl. She doted on Seulgi an awful lot, and he could see in their eyes that they genuinely cared about each other. It was good, Taemin thought. He loved his friend dearly and was overjoyed to see that she’d found someone to make her so happy. She deserved it, being one of the most considerate, caring people he knew.

Seungwan’s cousin on the other hand - Taemin couldn’t quite crack him. He’d been mostly quiet since they’d arrived a few hours ago, and other than playing a few awkward games of beer pong with Taemin’s college friends and making small talk, he didn’t really seem like the chatty type. 

He was _handsome_ , Taemin noted when he danced with everyone in the living room to the slow, dirty beat of whatever song was on Kibum’s playlist - probably about forty people had come to the party by then. It turned out Seulgi wasn’t the only one to invite friends over. People seemed desperate for a way to have fun in the midst of a bleak winter. Kibum and Minho didn’t seem to mind. Taemin knew they loved a good party, and it had been a while since they’d been able to blow off some steam the way they did when they were in college.

The cousin was handsome, in that classic beauty kind of way. Tall, with big eyes and a strong jaw, plush lips and thick cords of muscle visible in the way his button-up shirt clung to his body. He was endearingly overdressed, in a shirt and jeans while everyone was dressed rather casually, Taemin included, drowned in one of Jongin’s hoodies he’d stolen a few months back and never returned. The new guest probably didn’t really know what kind of party this was going to be, but oddly enough he didn’t stick out like a sore thumb. The way he was dressed made sense. Handsome clothes for a handsome guy, Taemin thought.

“Do you wanna go get some fresh air?” Taemin asked him - _huh, he didn’t even know his name_ , he noted - after they’d been dancing for a while. With each song that passed, Taemin had gotten closer to him, running a hand through his own hair and stealing some glances here and there, heavy, dark looks to assess the situation, assess the possible outcome. 

He needed this. After learning what Minho had told him about Jongin, he needed this. Jongin was fine, huh? He could be fine, too. He could be more than fine. He could be making out with Seulgi’s girlfriend’s hot cousin right this second. Maybe it was an unhealthy way to cope, but then again, when had Taemin ever been the picture of healthy coping mechanisms? His cigarette addiction, his inability to tune work out of his brain for more than a few hours, the caffeine he might as well have injected straight into his veins from how much coffee he drank a day. This was just another element added to the fragile house of cards that his life had become. If it sent it crashing down, then be it.

“You don’t talk much, do you?” Taemin asked once they were outside, leaning against the wall. Nobody was out on the balcony and it was just as good - he knew how annoying and teasing his friends could get when they sensed any attempt at flirting from anyone, especially from Taemin.

“I don’t know what to say,” the other said with a shrug of his shoulders, his voice deep. His words were innocent, but the way he leaned against the wall, close to Taemin, his arm brushing against Taemin’s shoulder, so close that he could feel his body heat in the cool winter night, painted a different picture.

“Well, are you enjoying the party?” Taemin asked, a playful smile tugging at the corner of his lips when he saw the man flinch a little at the way he ran his fingers up and down his arm, playing with the crisp collar of his shirt.

“I’m enjoying some things,” he said, an equally playful look in his eyes when he stepped slightly closer to Taemin, and he couldn’t deny the way his body heated up from having the other so _close_. 

“Yeah? Like what?” his fingers trailed up to trace over the other’s ear, and Taemin sighed when the man turned his head to press his open lips against his palm, tongue darting out when Taemin traced his bottom lip with the pad of his thumb, “fuck, look at you.”

“Hm,” the other man hummed out, a low, deep rumble at the back of his throat when he sucked on Taemin’s thumb before pulling away - _please let nobody come outside right now_ , Taemin pleaded to a God he didn’t believe in, “my job sucks and I don’t know anybody in town, so I’m enjoying the company. I’m enjoying _this_ company,” he trailed off. Taemin sucked in a hot breath when the man’s hands came to grip around Taemin’s hips to pull him in.

The way he kissed was _dangerous_ , Taemin found. Way too easy to get lost in, and he did get lost in it, his hands gripping on the taller’s hair and his body pressing up against him. He felt so much warmer like this, pushing Taemin against the brick wall as his tongue brushed against his, long, _long_ fingers gripping onto his hips and slipping down to squeeze his ass, drawing a short moan from Taemin’s lips.

“You’ve been driving me crazy all night, shit, the way you looked at me,” the other whispered lowly in Taemin’s ear, making him shiver. This was the epitome of _want_ , he craved it beneath his skin and in his bones, wanted nothing else than the other man close, ever closer. 

As his hand teased Taemin’s waistband and his mouth travelled to his neck, lips hotly closing around a patch of skin and tongue darting out to smooth against it, Taemin chuckled, head bumping against the wall lightly.

“Fuck, wait-- hold on,” he managed to breathe out, leaving the taller to look at him with wide, confused eyes, hands immediately stopping their motion.

“Something wrong? You got a boyfriend or something?”

“I don’t know your name,” Taemin laughed quietly, which made the other smile a little and pull him in for another dizzying kiss. He was so _hot_ , the way he kissed him almost possessively, his tall frame completely swallowing Taemin’s smaller one, big, strong hands squeezing his waist and pulling him in, Taemin could feel himself losing bits of sanity, just the way he craved it, just the way he _needed_ it. 

“Lucas,” he said against his lips. Taemin hummed at the information, deepening the kiss a little before he frowned. Lucas. Lucas. He’d heard that name somewhere. He’d seen that man’s face somewhere.

He’d seen Seungwan’s face somewhere. The tattoos were familiar, the way inked flowers curled around her arm was familiar.

His eyes shot open when the realization dawned on him. He knew that face, he’d seen it in Stanford photos he’d searched for a while. He knew that name, Lucas, Lucas _Wong_ , he’d written it all over his notebook trying to find some sort of information, _somewhere_. Seungwan, he knew her as well. _Wendy_ , her name tag read when he met her, when she turned him away from their office.

“You work for NCT?”

* * *

**Jongin - 01:23 am  
** _hi taemin, i know it’s been a while_

 **Jongin - 01:24 am  
** _can we talk soon?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so.
> 
> sorry for the wait ;u; final season and deadlines have been piling up, but holiday break is giving me some time to write! i hope you won't be too mad at me for making you wait too long! and i hope the wait was worth it  
> the story is slowly unfolding, i don't really know how long it'll be but i don't want to rush it either. did you expect the twist at the end? let me know your thoughts in the comments or on twitter, i always love knowing what you guys think! 
> 
> [twitter](https://twitter.com/jnmpia) | [playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2XkJL7DcbQ5v0gzBMlyA6N)


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